In many ways the late 18th Century is a time that reflects our own. In a period of supposed intellectual enlightenment, but also cultural excess and a widening societal rift, one thinker stands apart as a voice of reason and social justice. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a critic of the enlightenment from within, and in this role he brought the need for social change back to man's very nature, which has been betrayed and warped. Within a tightly structured and fickle intellectual environment, and with all the airs and graces necessary in order to avoid censorship, he conceived some of the most socially relevant philosophy of his age.
“What then is to be done? Must we destroy society, abolish mine and yours, and go back to living in the forests with the bears? This is the sort of conclusion my adversaries would come to.”
In ‘A discourse on the origin of inequality’ Rousseau is eager to dismiss the above conclusion as an ill-considered reaction to his work, and states that he would ‘sooner forestall it than leave to them (my adversaries) the shame of drawing it.’ It can be argued that this criticism is unjustified in the brief text that follows it. Rousseau confirms in this passage and consistently throughout his text that a return to the state of nature described in the first part of the discourse would be impossible, but leaves little room for an alternative course of action. Rousseau’s only suggestion in this part of the discourse is for men ‘whose passions have destroyed their original simplicity’ to continue to respect and serve their communities and in particular honour those who find ways of preventing or curing all the ‘evils and abuses’ that necessarily plague the current society. The discourse ends in a very negative manner by stating that these men will continue to live in ‘contempt for a constitution that cannot support itself...’ and the question still beckons “What then is to be done?”
Rousseau gives no explicit answer to this question in the second discourse, his hypothetical history of man seems to place the society in which he was writing and indeed, the one we live in today into an irredeemable situation. However, this impression that is imposed upon the reader can perhaps be seen as a result of the strength and plausibility of Rousseau’s thought experiments, rather than as a misgiving or failure to provide positive response. It is important to recognise that the question posed by the Academy of Dijon did not allude to a need for a solution to the problem, and that despite this there are suggestions for a remedy of sorts evident within the discourse.
At the very beginning of the discourse in ‘Dedication to the Republic of Geneva.’ Rousseau reflects extensively on what he would consider to be an admirable and just society in which to live. These thoughts are not placed in the context of the intricate thought experiment later in the piece, but still can be considered to be relevant to the problems posed by the specious social contract. In the dedication, Rousseau describes a society which has ‘an extent proportionate to the limits of the human faculties.’ Where each person’s occupation is equal to their capabilities, and no-one has need to make an infringement on another’s function. Within this structure, Rousseau argues that each person will bear his own burden or yoke ‘...with the greater docility, as they are made to bear no other.’ Another aspect of Rousseau’s ideal Republic is that all the individuals are ‘well known to one another’ and there is an emphasis on the ‘general happiness’ of the public, which is achieved by the solemn adherence to and reverence of a few antiquitous and sacred laws. It is possible that Rousseau placed this dedication to an ideal republic at the start of his discourse intentionally so that these ideas can be kept in mind when reading the fiercely detailed and derisory comment on the unjust civil society which is to follow.
It is arguable however, that Rousseau is providing a positive response in a much more subtle manner, that is, the conceptual history of the discourse is, in itself, a response to the problems of the current state of man. In the first part of the discourse, Rousseau constructs a detailed hypothetical image of ‘Nascent man’ in a ‘pure state of nature’ or what he calls the ‘forest’. In this world man is stripped down to its raw material, lives entirely within himself and inequalities are unimportant as liaisons with other beings do not occur. One might ask what the point is of constructing an entire argument on a world that may not have and may not ever actually exist. Rousseau’s response to this is that it is necessary to have ‘precise notions’ on this state of nature in order to ‘judge our present state correctly’ , and the only way to achieve this within society is to hypothesise. The incredibly extraneous but plausible world which Rousseau creates forces to reconsider our notions of what the basic natural characteristics of a human are. Rousseau does not allow for any Hobbesian ideas of natural violence or Aristotelian ideas of natural sociability and argues that man is naturally solitary and peaceful, and can be likened to an Orang-utan in this respect. This reassessment of the intrinsic nature of human beings can be considered to be a positive response in light of a society rife with injustice and violence.
As the discourse progresses and develops this sympathetic view of human nature is maintained in reference to our natural capacity for compassion. Although Rousseau recognises that this capacity is altered in the later stages by the awakening of imagination and amour-propre, the very idea that we are by nature compassionate beings offers some insight into how society could perhaps be altered fundamentally simply by placing more trust in ourselves as moral agents. This idea is reflected in ‘Dedication to the Republic of Geneva’ in the importance Rousseau places on ‘the right of legislation...’ to be ‘...vested in all citizens.’
In his book on Rousseau, Tim O’Hagan highlights his concern on the drastic difference between savage man and civilised man. Rousseau writes ‘Savage man and Civilised man differ so much in the bottom of their hearts and inclinations that what constitutes the supreme happiness of one would reduce the other to despair.’ The Savage man of Rousseau’s argument wants only to ‘live and remain idle’, while the civilised man ‘torments himself incessantly in order to seek still more laborious occupations.’ O’Hagan insists that Rousseau is not advocating a return to this idleness of the savage man, but is using it to ‘highlight the frustrating character of work in the contemporary world’ Perhaps then, as O’Hagan argues, Rousseau is suggesting that a positive solution to this ‘frustrating character’ would be to shift the emphasis away from the results and competition of industry which ‘fails to bring satisfaction’, and to have a system where the actual process of work can be appreciated and valued in itself. In this way, it is possible to discern some positive solutions to the problems posed in the second discourse by carefully considering the methods and practices Rousseau is critical of.
However, it is not until the end of the discourse that the full scale of the problems that Rousseau has identified is realised. He describes how original man has ‘vanished by degrees’ and ‘society offers to us only an assembly of artificial men and factitious passions... without any real foundation in nature.’ In the following passages, Rousseau continues to describe the extent of the evils that society has caused and the corruption to the human soul. As injustice is piled upon injustice and corruption upon corruption Rousseau builds up an overwhelming image of seemingly insurmountable despair. The reader is forced to come to terms with the fact, and Rousseau does indeed present it as a matter of fact, that human existence in civilisation has become wretched and miserable in comparison to the peaceful life of the savage man. The discourse ends in a defiant tone where the civilised man can only hope to soldier on, with respect for the many ingenious and splendid ways men have held off the evils caused by their society, but in contempt for a situation where this sort of practice is necessary. This seems to be a very unsatisfactory conclusion. Its possible when reading the final pages of the discourse to feel as though Rousseau has broken away the foundations upon which we live and left us nothing to clutch on to.
To rectify this, it must be considered that Rousseau makes allusions to how society could be restructured and improved without ever explicitly stating it. His tone earlier in the discourse is more forgiving. ‘...this is not the original state of man, but it is merely the spirit of society, and the inequality which society produces, that thus transform and all our natural inclinations.’ Although Rousseau maintains that a return to the original state of man is impossible, the above realisation certainly allows room for some sort of change. The intrinsic hardships of nature could perhaps be replaced by a more rigourous social structure where the general will prevails and inequality in society is proportionate with physical inequality, which Rousseau insists is minimal.
By stating so explicitly the injustice of the current situation where the ‘privileged few... gorge themselves with superfluities, while the starving multitude are in want of the bare necessities of life.’ in context with the intricate and sophisticated thought experiment that precedes the claim, Rousseau places himself in the best possible position to make such claims, and they are given added weight by the plausibility of his argument. While no complete answers are given within this discourse, the essential groundwork has surely been done to allow these questions to feasibly by addressed in the future.
In conclusion, Rousseau’s positive response to the problems identified within the second discourse is not in the form of explicitly stated answers. Instead, I would like to consider the possibility that the discourse itself is the first step towards a conceivable solution. Another strong aspect of Rousseau’s positive response is social, allusions to which can be found throughout the text but most pertinently in the ‘Dedication to the Republic of Geneva’, he states ‘I should have wished to live and die free: that is, so far subject to the laws that neither I, nor anybody else, should be able to cast off their honourable yoke.’
Bibliography
1. O’Hagan, Timothy. ‘Rousseau’. London: Routledge, 1999.
2. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. ‘The Social Contract and The Discourses’. Everyman’s Library, 1993
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
The "Queerness" of Moral Truths.
In a time when objective moral truths are continually undermined by rationality there is a great need to re-examine our system of morality and how it is employed. We have inherited a moral code that is inextricably linked to dogmatic religious institutions whose influence has now dissipated, leaving moral absolutes looking, well...like very queer sorts of things indeed.
In order to establish what can be gained by observing the queerness of moral truths there are a number of issues that need to be addressed. Firstly it is necessary to discuss in what ways moral truths can be said to be “queer” and what exactly is meant by that assertion, it also must be seen how this claim could fit in to a moral error theory as a whole, and in turn how this will affect moral discourse in general. The next question to be addressed is how big of a problem we perceive this queerness to be. It could perhaps be argued that we may accept the queerness of moral truths in much the same way as we accept the many queer, unexpected and often confounding findings of modern physics; without it affecting our belief in its fundamental principles. It may be the case though that this observed queerness will necessarily cause us to disbelieve the existence of moral truths, and it must be established how anything could be gained from this outcome. Perhaps it will suffice to say that there is an instrumental gain in simply embracing this new-found truth about moral values. However, it is arguable that this gain won’t be anywhere near enough to account for the considerable doubt and confusion the error theorist will find himself in at this stage. If there is any more to be gained we must ask the question; what is to be done about this new belief that moral truths are to be disbelieved? If moral truths are no longer to be believed in, it may be the case that we should advocate a sort of moral abolitionism, whereby the moral truths and the entire discourse that they connote are completely abandoned. Conversely though, it could be argued that moral truths are too important to be simply written off, that we would lose far more than we stand to gain. If so, perhaps we could hang on to moral truths and their long established discourse as ideas and thoughts, without fully believing in them. In essence we should advocate a sort of moral fictionalism.
After these deliberations, perhaps then we will be in a position to decide how anything could be gained from the observation that moral truths are “queer”.
In order to determine what exactly is meant by the assertion that moral truths are “queer” we should consider John Mackie’s ‘Argument from Queerness’ from which the term is derived. Mackie’s argument is twofold, with one metaphysical component and one epistemological. He states: ‘If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe.’ suggesting that if there were to be such things as moral values they would be entirely metaphysically unique. He goes on to mention the epistemological component: ‘...if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else.’ It seems that Mackie objects to two conjoining notions ascribed to moral values by Moral Objectivists; prescriptivity and objectivity. According to Mackie, we can’t allow that these two properties be ascribed to an entity without rendering it absolutely metaphysically and epistemologically unique, or in other words; it would have to be a very queer sort of entity indeed. The real problem, as Mackie describes, is the link between the two notions. The worry is that if a moral property, such as the idea of wrongness, is objective or mind-independent then we cannot reasonably attribute it to an action in the natural world, such as an act of deliberate cruelty, yet this is what moral objectivism compels us to do. He states: ‘It is not even sufficient to postulate a faculty which sees the wrongness: something must be postulated which can see at once the natural features that constitute the cruelty, and the wrongness, and the mysterious consequential link between the two.’ The situation would certainly be made far more comprehensible if the ‘moral quality’ of ‘wrongness’ could be replaced by some sort of ‘subjective response.’
So it is now left to us to decide what to make of this idea that moral truths are “queer”. Much depends on how much of a problem we perceive this queerness to be. It could be argued that it is possible to accept the queerness of moral properties without this altering our belief in them. To examine this issue further we must ask the question; queer in comparison to what? Certainly, if we accept Mackie’s assertions then we are left with entities that do seem quite unlike anything else. It’s true, moral properties are very unlike tables, chairs, sound waves, human institutions and biological functions and everything else that we accept as normal, but does it follow that we should be unable to comprehend their existence? Surely, they can only seem queer in comparison to some standard of normality and it seems the standard that is being employed in this case is that of natural science. Advances in modern physics and other pursuits introduce queer or at least unfamiliar entities all the time and we seem to be quite capable of accepting these without doubting the fundamental principles of the science. Perhaps it is the case, as Mackie suggests, that all this phenomena can be eventually explained in empirical terms, with the sole exception of values that exist independently of anything human or natural. In this instance we would have to concede that our belief is at best, unjustifiable. It is difficult to see how anything could be gained from accepting the queerness of moral truths without abandoning our belief, therefore in order to continue the investigation we must suppose that our belief has indeed vanished.
We now must assess how we can be seen to have gained anything by abandoning our belief in moral truths that exist independently of any human enterprise while maintaining assertoric force. It could be suggested at this point that we have discovered a truth about the nature of moral values, and that there is an instrumental gain in banishing from our minds a belief that has been found to be false. Therefore, even if our discovery leads to our abandoning of all moral discourse in general and this in turn leads to widespread confusion and doubt, a situation where we no longer see any reason not to do exactly as we want and to commit acts that we previously would have condemned as morally reprehensible. Even in this case, we have gained simply because a true belief is always preferable to a false one. William James argues that a true belief is an extremely valuable commodity, stating ‘since almost any object may some day become temporarily important, the advantage of having a general stock of extra truths, of truths that will be true of merely possible situations, is obvious.’ The fact of the matter is, as Richard Joyce puts it, ‘We never know whether and in what way a belief may be called upon to serve action, and, given this, it is better that it be true than false.’ So, even if we could somehow force ourselves to perpetuate a belief that we now know to be false, we should not do so because truth has instrumental value.
To continue the investigation, we are now supposing that our beliefs about moral values must be abandoned, while also recognising that we have perhaps already gained something by recognising the truth of the situation. It could be argued however that with our belief in moral truths abandoned we will now be thrown into a state of ethical disarray, and that the gain we have achieved through recognising the truth is no kind of compensation for the fragile and potentially dangerous state of affairs we now find ourselves in.
The truth of the above argument can only be determined by the course of action that we choose to take at this juncture. It depends on whether or not we decide to abandon moral discourse altogether now that we can no longer believe in these objective and prescriptive moral truths. In other words; will we now choose to advocate a sort of moral abolitionism? This choice depends on how we assess the importance of moral discourse. It may be the case that some sort of moral discourse is a vital component or mechanism in the way societies operate and even in the way we relate and interact with one another. Conversely though, it can also be argued that all moral language can indeed by pushed aside in favour of pure reason and rationality. In his book ‘The Myth of Morality’, Richard Joyce considers a non-moral response to crime. He argues that this response, ‘no matter how vigourous’, could not accomplish the same effect as a condemnation, which would have to include a moral judgement. The effect of moral judgement is a sort of binding or fortifying experience among the condemners. Suggesting that ‘moral thinking provides a strong foundation for moralistic aggression towards defectors...A distinctively moral framework may also provide something of a shared experience of value which binds a community together.’ In these deliberations, Joyce has highlighted an important feature of moral judgements, in that they can be a ‘shared experience’. In contrast, a non-moral response to a crime of unprovoked violence or any other conflict where action is required would necessarily have to be an intensely personal and subjective experience. We could ask; the violent criminal could be sent to jail, why is it necessary to also condemn him? An appropriate response could be that without a shared system of moral judgement there would only be this personal non-moral response and there is no institution or system that could be devised that would be able to send a man to jail on these grounds. Without some sort of condemnation of the crime there could be no agreement on what action is to be taken.
Aside from these social problems, there may be a more convincing reason not to support moral abolitionism when its implications are considered on a more personal level. It may be the case that we actually need a moral discourse in order to function properly as humans, as a way of combating our fallacies and shortcomings. Richard Joyce argues that moral discourse could be used as an expedient to help us triumph over our many ‘practical irrationalities’ such as weakness of will and passion, which interfere in our decision making processes even when we can clearly see which action should be taken. One major failing that Hobbes identifies in human rationality is the ‘perverse desire for present profit’7which can stand in the way of doing what we know is the right thing and ultimately the most profitable in favour of immediate benefit. Joyce holds that moral thinking can act as a safeguard against this ‘perverse desire’ and ‘bolster our self control.’ In essence, ‘moral beliefs can help us to act in an instrumentally rational manner’
It seems clear from these deliberations that we can not gain anything through moral abolitionism, and not only do we not gain, but by completely abandoning moral discourse we stand to lose a large portion of our human faculty for rationality, as well as promoting a society of defection and distress. If there is anything to be gained by observing that moral truths are “queer” it will be under the following conditions; the observation will necessarily lead us to the conclusion that we should abandon our belief in moral truths. However, this loss of belief will not cause us to abolish moral discourse entirely as we have established that the losses would be too great. Therefore, to determine whether or not there is anything to gain we must assess a system that allows us to utilise and our long established moral discourse despite the fact that we no longer believe it under the most critical conditions. One suggestion to get around this problem could be to perpetuate the myth that moral truths exist by continually distributing materials that reinforce this opinion, and failing to disclose any argument to the contrary. In essence, a sort of moral propagandism. However, I do not wish to entertain this as a serious option as I do not believe morality to be the sort of thing one can bolster by a purposeful mass deception. This would be a very fragile and foolhardy solution.
There is one alternative that we should consider in more detail, and that is the sort of moral fictionalism put forward by Richard Joyce. In order to adequately assess Joyce’s proposition, it is necessary to first isolate and examine what it means to fictionalise a concept to determine what exactly is meant by the term fictionalism. Once discussed, the term will then need to be applied to the discourse of morality and the implications of this pairing will need to be analysed.
Joyce stipulates that ‘...to take a fictionalist stance towards a discourse is to believe that the discourse entails or embodies a theory that is false, but to carry on employing the discourse, at least in many contexts, as if this were not the case, because it is useful to do so.’ On first impression this seems to fit our need very well, but we must ask the question; what does it mean to fictionalise a discourse? Central to the concept is the idea of make-believe, as essentially we are pretending to believe something that, under the closest scrutiny, we actually don’t. As such, if moral fictionalism were to be adopted it would cease to be assertoric. It portends to something like noncognitivism or expressivism but with two important differences. Firstly, Joyce clearly states that ‘the proposal is not that noncognitivism is true of our actual moral discourse. Rather, fictionalism amounts to the claim that noncognitivism might become true, if we were to alter our attitude towards moral discourse.’1 Secondly, traditional noncognitivism holds that when we say something like “social justice is good” we are simply expression our own personal approval towards charity, something like “social justice, hurrah!”, but with the fictionalist stance there is no need for this altered language. We may say “Social Justice is good” as Joyce puts it ‘without assertoric force: not as an expression of a belief, but as an expression of a thought. In order to reinforce this claim we can return to the idea of make-believe, just because we are pretending to believe in moral truths doesn’t mean we have to alter our language to say “Lets pretend that social justice is good” in the same way that when we want to join in a child’s game of make-believe we would spoil the fun if we were to run around roaring and shouting “Lets pretend I am a Lion!”. In order for the game to work we must be resolute and roar “I am a Lion!”. The system works as long as everyone in the group knows the rules. In essence, everyone must be aware that when we start to speak about moral properties, we are withdrawing from assertoric force.
I believe that in this way we can maintain many, if not all of the benefits of a moral system that we still fully believe in. The important question that remains is where do these deliberations leave us in the cause for progressive social change. By employing this fictionalist game don't we surrender the potency of our arguments for social justice, equality and internationalism? I would like to argue that this is not the case. If we are to find ourselves in an intellectual realm where moral truths are no longer absolute we must embrace the chance to reassess and re-evaluate our moral discourse. While moral absolutism, often inextricably bound to religious dogma, can lead to corruption and stagnation, moral fictionalism affords us the ability to combat these vices. The immovable moral system of old has been long and often abused, injustices have become institutionalized and deeply ingrained in the social fabric under the shadow of objective moral truth. Only by withdrawing from full belief in this system can we achieve the perspective needed to redress the balance.
Bibliography
1. Fisher, Andrew and Kirchin, Simon, Arguing about Metaethics, chapter 5-7,(Routledge, 2006).
2. Hobbes, Thomas, De Cive, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983).
3. Hume, David, Treatise, book 3, 1978.
4. Mackie, John, Ethics; Inventing right and wrong, (Penguin 1977).
5. W. James, Pragmatism:the meaning of truth, (Cambridge, mass: Havard University Press, 1978)
6. Joyce, Richard, The Myth of Morality, (Cambridge, 2001).
In order to establish what can be gained by observing the queerness of moral truths there are a number of issues that need to be addressed. Firstly it is necessary to discuss in what ways moral truths can be said to be “queer” and what exactly is meant by that assertion, it also must be seen how this claim could fit in to a moral error theory as a whole, and in turn how this will affect moral discourse in general. The next question to be addressed is how big of a problem we perceive this queerness to be. It could perhaps be argued that we may accept the queerness of moral truths in much the same way as we accept the many queer, unexpected and often confounding findings of modern physics; without it affecting our belief in its fundamental principles. It may be the case though that this observed queerness will necessarily cause us to disbelieve the existence of moral truths, and it must be established how anything could be gained from this outcome. Perhaps it will suffice to say that there is an instrumental gain in simply embracing this new-found truth about moral values. However, it is arguable that this gain won’t be anywhere near enough to account for the considerable doubt and confusion the error theorist will find himself in at this stage. If there is any more to be gained we must ask the question; what is to be done about this new belief that moral truths are to be disbelieved? If moral truths are no longer to be believed in, it may be the case that we should advocate a sort of moral abolitionism, whereby the moral truths and the entire discourse that they connote are completely abandoned. Conversely though, it could be argued that moral truths are too important to be simply written off, that we would lose far more than we stand to gain. If so, perhaps we could hang on to moral truths and their long established discourse as ideas and thoughts, without fully believing in them. In essence we should advocate a sort of moral fictionalism.
After these deliberations, perhaps then we will be in a position to decide how anything could be gained from the observation that moral truths are “queer”.
In order to determine what exactly is meant by the assertion that moral truths are “queer” we should consider John Mackie’s ‘Argument from Queerness’ from which the term is derived. Mackie’s argument is twofold, with one metaphysical component and one epistemological. He states: ‘If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe.’ suggesting that if there were to be such things as moral values they would be entirely metaphysically unique. He goes on to mention the epistemological component: ‘...if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else.’ It seems that Mackie objects to two conjoining notions ascribed to moral values by Moral Objectivists; prescriptivity and objectivity. According to Mackie, we can’t allow that these two properties be ascribed to an entity without rendering it absolutely metaphysically and epistemologically unique, or in other words; it would have to be a very queer sort of entity indeed. The real problem, as Mackie describes, is the link between the two notions. The worry is that if a moral property, such as the idea of wrongness, is objective or mind-independent then we cannot reasonably attribute it to an action in the natural world, such as an act of deliberate cruelty, yet this is what moral objectivism compels us to do. He states: ‘It is not even sufficient to postulate a faculty which sees the wrongness: something must be postulated which can see at once the natural features that constitute the cruelty, and the wrongness, and the mysterious consequential link between the two.’ The situation would certainly be made far more comprehensible if the ‘moral quality’ of ‘wrongness’ could be replaced by some sort of ‘subjective response.’
So it is now left to us to decide what to make of this idea that moral truths are “queer”. Much depends on how much of a problem we perceive this queerness to be. It could be argued that it is possible to accept the queerness of moral properties without this altering our belief in them. To examine this issue further we must ask the question; queer in comparison to what? Certainly, if we accept Mackie’s assertions then we are left with entities that do seem quite unlike anything else. It’s true, moral properties are very unlike tables, chairs, sound waves, human institutions and biological functions and everything else that we accept as normal, but does it follow that we should be unable to comprehend their existence? Surely, they can only seem queer in comparison to some standard of normality and it seems the standard that is being employed in this case is that of natural science. Advances in modern physics and other pursuits introduce queer or at least unfamiliar entities all the time and we seem to be quite capable of accepting these without doubting the fundamental principles of the science. Perhaps it is the case, as Mackie suggests, that all this phenomena can be eventually explained in empirical terms, with the sole exception of values that exist independently of anything human or natural. In this instance we would have to concede that our belief is at best, unjustifiable. It is difficult to see how anything could be gained from accepting the queerness of moral truths without abandoning our belief, therefore in order to continue the investigation we must suppose that our belief has indeed vanished.
We now must assess how we can be seen to have gained anything by abandoning our belief in moral truths that exist independently of any human enterprise while maintaining assertoric force. It could be suggested at this point that we have discovered a truth about the nature of moral values, and that there is an instrumental gain in banishing from our minds a belief that has been found to be false. Therefore, even if our discovery leads to our abandoning of all moral discourse in general and this in turn leads to widespread confusion and doubt, a situation where we no longer see any reason not to do exactly as we want and to commit acts that we previously would have condemned as morally reprehensible. Even in this case, we have gained simply because a true belief is always preferable to a false one. William James argues that a true belief is an extremely valuable commodity, stating ‘since almost any object may some day become temporarily important, the advantage of having a general stock of extra truths, of truths that will be true of merely possible situations, is obvious.’ The fact of the matter is, as Richard Joyce puts it, ‘We never know whether and in what way a belief may be called upon to serve action, and, given this, it is better that it be true than false.’ So, even if we could somehow force ourselves to perpetuate a belief that we now know to be false, we should not do so because truth has instrumental value.
To continue the investigation, we are now supposing that our beliefs about moral values must be abandoned, while also recognising that we have perhaps already gained something by recognising the truth of the situation. It could be argued however that with our belief in moral truths abandoned we will now be thrown into a state of ethical disarray, and that the gain we have achieved through recognising the truth is no kind of compensation for the fragile and potentially dangerous state of affairs we now find ourselves in.
The truth of the above argument can only be determined by the course of action that we choose to take at this juncture. It depends on whether or not we decide to abandon moral discourse altogether now that we can no longer believe in these objective and prescriptive moral truths. In other words; will we now choose to advocate a sort of moral abolitionism? This choice depends on how we assess the importance of moral discourse. It may be the case that some sort of moral discourse is a vital component or mechanism in the way societies operate and even in the way we relate and interact with one another. Conversely though, it can also be argued that all moral language can indeed by pushed aside in favour of pure reason and rationality. In his book ‘The Myth of Morality’, Richard Joyce considers a non-moral response to crime. He argues that this response, ‘no matter how vigourous’, could not accomplish the same effect as a condemnation, which would have to include a moral judgement. The effect of moral judgement is a sort of binding or fortifying experience among the condemners. Suggesting that ‘moral thinking provides a strong foundation for moralistic aggression towards defectors...A distinctively moral framework may also provide something of a shared experience of value which binds a community together.’ In these deliberations, Joyce has highlighted an important feature of moral judgements, in that they can be a ‘shared experience’. In contrast, a non-moral response to a crime of unprovoked violence or any other conflict where action is required would necessarily have to be an intensely personal and subjective experience. We could ask; the violent criminal could be sent to jail, why is it necessary to also condemn him? An appropriate response could be that without a shared system of moral judgement there would only be this personal non-moral response and there is no institution or system that could be devised that would be able to send a man to jail on these grounds. Without some sort of condemnation of the crime there could be no agreement on what action is to be taken.
Aside from these social problems, there may be a more convincing reason not to support moral abolitionism when its implications are considered on a more personal level. It may be the case that we actually need a moral discourse in order to function properly as humans, as a way of combating our fallacies and shortcomings. Richard Joyce argues that moral discourse could be used as an expedient to help us triumph over our many ‘practical irrationalities’ such as weakness of will and passion, which interfere in our decision making processes even when we can clearly see which action should be taken. One major failing that Hobbes identifies in human rationality is the ‘perverse desire for present profit’7which can stand in the way of doing what we know is the right thing and ultimately the most profitable in favour of immediate benefit. Joyce holds that moral thinking can act as a safeguard against this ‘perverse desire’ and ‘bolster our self control.’ In essence, ‘moral beliefs can help us to act in an instrumentally rational manner’
It seems clear from these deliberations that we can not gain anything through moral abolitionism, and not only do we not gain, but by completely abandoning moral discourse we stand to lose a large portion of our human faculty for rationality, as well as promoting a society of defection and distress. If there is anything to be gained by observing that moral truths are “queer” it will be under the following conditions; the observation will necessarily lead us to the conclusion that we should abandon our belief in moral truths. However, this loss of belief will not cause us to abolish moral discourse entirely as we have established that the losses would be too great. Therefore, to determine whether or not there is anything to gain we must assess a system that allows us to utilise and our long established moral discourse despite the fact that we no longer believe it under the most critical conditions. One suggestion to get around this problem could be to perpetuate the myth that moral truths exist by continually distributing materials that reinforce this opinion, and failing to disclose any argument to the contrary. In essence, a sort of moral propagandism. However, I do not wish to entertain this as a serious option as I do not believe morality to be the sort of thing one can bolster by a purposeful mass deception. This would be a very fragile and foolhardy solution.
There is one alternative that we should consider in more detail, and that is the sort of moral fictionalism put forward by Richard Joyce. In order to adequately assess Joyce’s proposition, it is necessary to first isolate and examine what it means to fictionalise a concept to determine what exactly is meant by the term fictionalism. Once discussed, the term will then need to be applied to the discourse of morality and the implications of this pairing will need to be analysed.
Joyce stipulates that ‘...to take a fictionalist stance towards a discourse is to believe that the discourse entails or embodies a theory that is false, but to carry on employing the discourse, at least in many contexts, as if this were not the case, because it is useful to do so.’ On first impression this seems to fit our need very well, but we must ask the question; what does it mean to fictionalise a discourse? Central to the concept is the idea of make-believe, as essentially we are pretending to believe something that, under the closest scrutiny, we actually don’t. As such, if moral fictionalism were to be adopted it would cease to be assertoric. It portends to something like noncognitivism or expressivism but with two important differences. Firstly, Joyce clearly states that ‘the proposal is not that noncognitivism is true of our actual moral discourse. Rather, fictionalism amounts to the claim that noncognitivism might become true, if we were to alter our attitude towards moral discourse.’1 Secondly, traditional noncognitivism holds that when we say something like “social justice is good” we are simply expression our own personal approval towards charity, something like “social justice, hurrah!”, but with the fictionalist stance there is no need for this altered language. We may say “Social Justice is good” as Joyce puts it ‘without assertoric force: not as an expression of a belief, but as an expression of a thought. In order to reinforce this claim we can return to the idea of make-believe, just because we are pretending to believe in moral truths doesn’t mean we have to alter our language to say “Lets pretend that social justice is good” in the same way that when we want to join in a child’s game of make-believe we would spoil the fun if we were to run around roaring and shouting “Lets pretend I am a Lion!”. In order for the game to work we must be resolute and roar “I am a Lion!”. The system works as long as everyone in the group knows the rules. In essence, everyone must be aware that when we start to speak about moral properties, we are withdrawing from assertoric force.
I believe that in this way we can maintain many, if not all of the benefits of a moral system that we still fully believe in. The important question that remains is where do these deliberations leave us in the cause for progressive social change. By employing this fictionalist game don't we surrender the potency of our arguments for social justice, equality and internationalism? I would like to argue that this is not the case. If we are to find ourselves in an intellectual realm where moral truths are no longer absolute we must embrace the chance to reassess and re-evaluate our moral discourse. While moral absolutism, often inextricably bound to religious dogma, can lead to corruption and stagnation, moral fictionalism affords us the ability to combat these vices. The immovable moral system of old has been long and often abused, injustices have become institutionalized and deeply ingrained in the social fabric under the shadow of objective moral truth. Only by withdrawing from full belief in this system can we achieve the perspective needed to redress the balance.
Bibliography
1. Fisher, Andrew and Kirchin, Simon, Arguing about Metaethics, chapter 5-7,(Routledge, 2006).
2. Hobbes, Thomas, De Cive, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983).
3. Hume, David, Treatise, book 3, 1978.
4. Mackie, John, Ethics; Inventing right and wrong, (Penguin 1977).
5. W. James, Pragmatism:the meaning of truth, (Cambridge, mass: Havard University Press, 1978)
6. Joyce, Richard, The Myth of Morality, (Cambridge, 2001).
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