Many atheist utilitarians have long resisted any concept of objectivity in ethics, in part because they do not have any metaphysical beliefs which are capable of grounding such claims. But with the release of Parfit’s On What Matters there will be renewed interest in philosophical circles about what sorts of goods are ‘objective’ and what, in fact, can ground the claim that something is objectively good or that a particular desire or preference is irrational or bad. There will also be renewed interest in explicitly theological/metaphysical approaches to ethics which have thought long and hard about how to ground objective claims.
Peter Singer is in the midst of reconsidering just how much he believes in objectivity in ethics, but we can see that old habits die hard in this interview he had with Oxford’s Nigel Biggar in the UK’s Standpoint magazine. In a discussion about the proper role of autonomy in ethics and public policy, Biggar brings out the big guns:
The question then is what the bounds of autonomy are because if individuals are given complete freedom to decide upon the value of their lives, and they then take it to extremes, then logic would move us to sanction masochistic suicide. I’m thinking of the notorious 2001 case of Armin Meiwes, who advertised on the internet for someone to be dismembered and eaten. A volunteer came forward and together they engaged in “consensual cannibalism”. Now it was consensual, it was the victim’s preference, but he nevertheless undervalued his own life. I don’t see how society’s condoning of that is compatible with generating a social norm of high regard for human life. Autonomy — yes, we all agree that there should be some scope for individuals to decide about what to do with their lives. The question is where you draw the bounds around autonomy.
Singer’s response was, because the situation was “bizarre”, to question whether each of them were actually thinking clearly and rationally about what they were doing. But Biggar presses him further and the following fascinating exchange breaks out:
NB: For reasons I understand, you are quite reluctant to affirm any kind of objective, moral reality or order, and you want to articulate your ethic in terms of individuals’ preferences —although I continue to see in you inadvertent affirmations of some kind of objective morality. For example, in the case of the man who volunteered to be dismembered and eaten, you wondered whether he could have been treated, implying that his understanding of his own good was wrong.
PS: Well, it was not a well-informed and considered understanding. Not that it was wrong in some other sense.
NB: He thought it was well-considered and informed.
PS: I don’t know enough about the case to know whether or not he did.
NB: The issue is that even if he thought really hard about it, I think you would still think that he was wrong. It’s not really a matter of how long he has thought about it.
PS: It is to some extent whether he has really considered it and decided if that is something that he really wants.
NB: Suppose he really had?
PS: Maybe I would go along with it. I mean, it’s really grotesque, but it’s consensual and it doesn’t harm anyone else. If that’s what he really wants, then maybe I’m not going to object.
NB: I do see reluctance on your part to affirm any kind of moral objectivity.
PS: I thought that I made it really clear at the conference in the last day or two that I have been influenced by Derek Parfit’s arguments in On What Matters to think that maybe there is an objective basis for ethics so in that sense it’s not inadvertent references, or some references that you think I make are inadvertent, but I am now prepared to say that some moral claims are objective truths in the same way that we think of mathematical truths as being so.
But is it really obvious that we know it is wrong to eat another human being, and to consent to being eaten, in the same way we know that 2+2=4? In other places, Singer calls this a ‘rational intuition’…and perhaps we can make judgments of trivial preferences (like ‘not caring about pleasure/pain on Tuesdays’) with this faculty, but with regard to the complex and divisive issues of our time, one person’s rational intuition could and and often does directly contradict the rational intuition of someone else. And what then?
No, I am more inclined to side with the St. Andrews utilitarian philosopher Tim Mulgan who argues that objective moral truths needed to be grounded in something more substantial–and he calls it “unconventional theism.” But what say our readers? Is it possible to ground objective moral truth by rational intuition in the way that Parfit and Singer are trying to, or do we need something more substantial?
Hi Charlie– I see we are getting down to some key moral issues. I wonder if you could clarify two things in your final question. One, what does the term “objective” add to the term “moral truth”? Two, since the word “intuition” is often used in a way that indicates non-rational knowledge, can you explain briefly what “rational” adds to “intuition”?
First, it is a truth grounded in something outside of mere desires or preferences. Second, I’m not sure…you’ll have to ask those guys. 🙂 But I take your point…I’m not sure it what sense it is rational in the way we normally use the word.
Thanks! I didn’t ask the questions just to be nit-picky – I think the way we frame what we’re trying to do when we do “ethics” crucially determines how we then go about doing it. In this case, my worry about “objective” in the way you define it above is that it forces us into a dichotomy between Humean (subjective) and Kantian (objective) approaches. In other words, what is needed to engage in conversation with utilitarians (Humeans) is for them to acknowledge some “objective” truth – that is, something “additional” and “outside” the self. This seems to me to lead inevitably to an approach either purely formal (like Kant) or quasi-formal (like the basic goods of Grisez/Finnis). In other words, it totally accepts Hume’s way of shaping the debate!
My presumption is that the alternative to this dichotomy (whether philosophical or theological) is Aristotelian. That is, what Singer would need to acknowledge is that humans have a nature with a telos. We might have disagreements about what that telos is, or about what it might then require – but the basic form of moral argument (a nature with a telos) is set. From that point, one can then perhaps “backtrack” to, say, biological or social data to support (or impugn) a given account of the nature/telos. I presume that what is meant by “intuition” has to be either some evolutionary “instinctual” trait or some socially-acquired disposition (or both). Thus, there might well be “objective moral truth” grounded in “rational intuitions” – but (on Aristotelian grounds) these matters will never suffice to get very far in terms of moral reasoning, because (a) one needs to accept the nature/telos form of what moral reasoning is about in the first place, and (b) these matters are likely to produce very “thin” agreements (i.e. about cannibalism!), rather than “thick” ones (i.e. about abortion), since any issue where there is genuine moral debate is likely to require a “thicker” account of the human telos than can be gleaned from social comparison or evolutionary traits.
So I guess I’m asking, don’t we ultimately need Aristotle here?
But I’m not sure that if you add objectivity in the sense of ‘that guy has a telos which is inconsistent with him choosing to be dismembered and eaten’, you don’t end up with ‘Hume-plus’ in a way with which I think you are not comfortable, right?
But is ‘Hume-plus’ so bad? In ‘Intractable Disputes’, I’m not sure MacIntyre thinks so: “How then should we formulate the Thomistic and Aristotelian claim that I am advancing? Thomistic Aristoalians agree with utilitarians that moral rules have to be understood teleologically. They agree with Mill—or rather Mill agreed with them—that there is no inconsistency in asserting of certain kinds of action both that they should be done for their own sake and also for the sake of achieving some further end.”
If that’s true, then what’s the ‘plus’? It seems to me that the plus is that, instead of a teleology based on maximizing subjective preferences which are unable to be rationally interrogated, it is a teleology based on an objective understanding of what is an objectively good life.
Let me humbly add a note that maybe corresponds to David’s “thick” morality point. Currently teaching Introduction to Christian Ethics to an ecumenical group of students training to be pastors and ministers (no RCs), we explored what we mean by sin, especially since many mainstream Protestant traditions bracketed the concept in order to emphasize in God’s love and salvation through Jesus. Ok. Some of what I’m trying to explain to them is that we are never fully aware of the full extent of the effects of sin in our lives and in society. In other words, the moral behavior of persons must be considered within the spectrum of an interdependence of beings. Within this understanding, ‘consensual cannibalism’ is not so much the potentially deranged arrangement between two ‘informed’ individuals, but it also encompasses these individuals’ reality before the web of human life. In other words, their moral activity impinges on the moral reality of all humanity, not just the two of them. In fact, if I understand Aquinas correctly on the effects of moral behavior by a person on the wider community, we are never ‘fully’ informed about the scope of any one of our moral actions.
Granting this understanding of moral interdependence, an objective principle serves the purpose of demanding – to the fullest extent possible – that we make decisions within a radically communal context, even within the confines of our own conscience. I’m not sure that this is exactly the Aristotelian telos that David suggests. Perhaps it is with respect to understanding the basic good of humanity to be one of fulfillment as human beings within an interdependent and social understanding of the person.
I’m not entire sure where I would develop this further, but in the case in point, and in many arguments supporting moral subjectivism, I don’t necessarily throw away the subjectivist perspective. I do demand that the subjectivists consider, if they can, the full scope and effects of their decision making. I certainly don’t feel I can achieve such complete knowledge and appreciate objective norms to stand as correctives to this basic – and potentially very dangerous – cognitive human flaw.