[Note: I am no longer happy with this, and intend to post a revised version soon. April 4]
Ethics and morality are important topics, but much ethical discussion and debate is unenlightening and unproductive.
I have serious reservations about philosophical ethics. Whilst a knowledge of some of the rudiments of ethical theory may be useful for articulating issues and problems, there is no clear way of solving problems or deciding between alternative approaches. The academic study of ethics soon becomes (in my experience) an area of rapidly diminishing returns.
Different people have very different ideas about the scope and nature of ethics, often talking at cross purposes or seeking to promote a cherished agenda by any means, including personal abuse.*
Rather than elaborating ambitious theories or contributing to the revival of Aristotelian or other classical approaches, I am drawn simply to look at how adjectives like 'ethical' and 'moral', auxiliaries like 'should' and nouns like 'obligation' or 'duty' are actually used in ordinary day-to-day contexts, and the implicit social rules with which such expressions are associated.
Every society, every social group incorporates implicit rules of behavior. These rules (some relating to etiquette or manners, others to morality) can be studied and described like any other aspect of social life.
Prescriptive (as distinct from descriptive) approaches involve the individual actually making or accepting or rejecting moral judgements or using or applying moral language or concepts.
Deontic logic traditionally divides behaviors into three broad classes: obligatory, impermissible and optional. It's a complex branch of logic, but the real complications and challenges of moral thinking are not so much logical as contextual. Because, obviously, the general situation and the specific position(s) of the individual(s) involved need to be taken into account.
Times have changed since F.H. Bradley wrote his famous essay, 'My station and its duties' [included in his Ethical Studies (1876)], but the basic principle of the contextuality of ethics still applies. A person's duties or obligations derive in large part from (or at least cannot be assessed without taking into account) his or her positions in complex societal, professional and familial structures.
Kant talked about a categorical imperative, but I don't think we can get beyond hypothetical imperatives. In other words, if you (in such and such a situation) want such and such an outcome, do this or that. With respect to social relations, this way of thinking is never straightforward or foolproof, and requires judgement and insight to be applied successfully.
The kind of (implicit) rule-based approach to ethical thinking and manners which I am advocating is consistent with a very modest view of rights. If you break society's implicit rules whenever it suits you, you forfeit your right to the benefits and protections those rules might potentially provide.
The key question in ethics is a first-person question: what should I do (or refrain from doing)? I say this is the key question in ethics, but such a question (and this is reflected in the ambiguity of the word 'should') transcends ethics or morality.
Ethical or moral questions often merge into questions of etiquette, aesthetics and prudence as well as other areas or dimensions of life. There are no clearcut divisions between ethical and other considerations, in other words, and a certain type of (marginally unacceptable) behavior may be condemned by some as immoral, while others might prefer to call it ugly, unwise or just bad form. Others may see it in a positive light.
Even very serious moral transgressions (like the indiscriminate killing of civilians) are sometimes seen by people in the grip of certain ideologies or belief-systems as praiseworthy.
Most of us, of course, will condemn such ideologies as noxious and depraved. I certainly do. It is not really a problem that we can't prove our view correct and its converse incorrect in some objective, theoretical sense (though many think it is). Ethics is just not like that.
Quite simply, there is no absolute or objective ethical authority, and nor is there any objective method of determining 'moral truths'.
* Here is a summary of a recent controversy involving some very silly and intemperate assertions on the part of one of the protagonists.
You lend a friend $100. He promises to repay you on Monday. On Saturday he makes a killing at the races, using your money. On Monday you ask him to repay the loan.
ReplyDeleteBut, sadly, on Sunday he was reading your blog. So, he says, Mark thinks ethics is not objective. He rubs his hands. In reply to your request, he reminds you that "Quite simply, there is no absolute or objective ethical authority, and nor is there any objective method of determining 'moral truths'." And, he adds, your request was framed as a categorical imperative, but only a hypothetical imperative will cut any ice. In short he has no moral reason to return the money.
Your reply?
I am addressing the question of the status of moral claims, not what beliefs might or might not be conducive to producing good or honest behavior.
DeleteI do not argue against the view that a belief in an objective moral realm (particularly if it comes with some kind of punishment and/or reward system) is conducive to good or honest behavior. [In a post in June last year at Conservative Tendency ('A hard God is good for business') I alluded to some research that suggests that old-fashioned religion does in fact encourage honest behavior.]
If there is an absolute or objective moral authority, where is he/she/it? [I don't deny that we can seek objective (i.e. disinterested) advice from a wise uncle or whatever.]
And, if there is a reliable method for identifying "moral truths", what is it?
You could say, 'Not returning borrowed money is wrong' is a 'moral truth', I suppose. But I think this is making everything unnecessarily abstract. Borrowing and property rights are just built into our mode of life, and, if you want to flout these conventions (for want of a better word), you lose the benefits attendant on being a trusted member of society.
I am not saying that the ordinary language of moral judgements etc. is meaningless, and I would certainly make – and express – negative judgements about the dishonest borrower you describe (as well as changing my behavior towards him).
I was hoping to make your argument less abstract. You sound too much like a philosopher, if I may say so.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that "Borrowing and property rights are just built into our mode of life, and, if you want to flout these conventions (for want of a better word), you lose the benefits attendant on being a trusted member of society." Except I'd delete "just". There's nothing that needs minimising here. The conventions and the rights and the benefits are a large part of how social life gets structured -- everywhere.
I'd add that there's a very good reason why people who flout the conventions lose the attendant benefits. The conventions could not operate otherwise. And the social life that rests on the conventions and practices would also fail. If ethics has some "authority" behind it, it is this sort of fact.
These are some of the things you could say to your horse-betting mate. At least, it's what I would say, assuming he wanted reasons.
I agree that sanctions against flouters (disapproval, etc.) are, as it were, built into moral conventions, and social life is dependent on (enough) people playing by the implicit rules.
DeleteYour approach seems to be designed to persuade the flouter or potential flouter that he has a good reason to follow moral norms. This is more or less how you framed your original question, and you returned to that point in your second comment.
It seems that you are making a Kantian point about universalizability, and you see this as potentially having the ability to motivate a waverer (assuming he is a rational agent). You seem – though I may be overextrapolating here – to be heading in the general direction of a categorical imperative, of Reason with a capital 'r' which is associated with some kind of objective moral realm (as Kant believed).
I don't think such reasoning has even the limited motivating potential you suggest. The flouter could reasonably say that a functioning society can cope with a certain number of flouters. And, if he was of a philosophical bent, he might even say that truth-telling and promise-keeping would lose their cachet if everyone told the truth and kept their promises.
You are half right about my position but I'm not at all Kantian. I'm at this stage trying to talk how most people would talk (in my observation). They would treat the defaulter as doing wrong. They would say you have a right to be given your money back. They would appeal to his sense of justice. They would ask him for an explanation of his actions, an explanation in terms that would answer the claim that he is behaving unjustly. They would admit that he might be kind, charming, lovable, smart and friendly, but they would cease to trust him, at least with money.
DeleteHis failure to see that justice has a claim on him would be seen as a failure of rationality in him. If he gives the pseudo-arguments you have him put forward, he would be told that the first is beside the point and the second is plain nonsense. The inconsistency that would soon emerge whenever he claimed property rights for himself would be quickly picked up by those around him.
My flouter's second argument was an attempt at a joke (suggesting that philosophers are prone to casuistry), but I wonder if the first – that social systems can tolerate a certain number of rule-breakers – is in fact beside the point?
Delete'His failure to see that justice has a claim on him would be seen as a failure of rationality ...' You assume he does not see the logic of justice and morality, but he may see it and understand it and still seek to defy it.
A defiant defaulter could not rationally claim property rights, but he could argue that he was behaving rationally (albeit solely out of self-interest) even if he rejects moral norms (so long as he is clever enough to deceive his victims and avoid serious sanctions). He can be rational and immoral.
I think the crucial point is that I want to maintain the distinction between rationality and morality. I want to say that the trickster, who tries to benefit from the rules while breaking them (using techniques of deception to protect himself), is not necessarily behaving irrationally even if he is behaving immorally.
You seem to want to conflate rationality and morality. You imagine (Plato, this time, not Kant) a dialogic situation where nothing is hidden.
Whereas I am thinking of an ordinary social situation where force and deception are always possibilities.
Assuming that the defaulter claims for himself none of the rights and benefits of social life, except by way of trickery, then, yes, he is being rational -- though only in a very attenuated sense. We probably could not get far in trying to persuade such a person that it is better to join the social contract. But his life will be nasty, brutish and short. We owe him nothing, so he will be always on the run.
DeleteMy best suggestion for such a person would be to get a decent sailing boat, a solar-driven desalinator, and a fishing line, and try for a life in international waters. Take a book or two. But don't take anyone else.
Meanwhile, it is rational for the rest of us to be moral and social. Morality is, I think, the set of conditions required for living together with other people. It provides collective security, and from that we get material benefits. Without it we could not raise children.
Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes and Smith are the best guides to these issues. Not Kant, Hume, Nietzsche or Mill.
Maybe our positions are not all that far apart. I do still have a couple of reservations about what you say here, however.
DeleteFirst, you seem to be taking a kind of all-or-nothing approach: you are either part of the system or not – whereas, in reality, we are all at least partly committed to a social network or networks.
Morality, you say, is the set of conditions required for living together with other people.
But we only exist as social beings. Leaving aside the problematic case of the solitary outlaw (or hermit), there is (as you have said) no other (viable) option.
So, in practice, the dishonest person is still within the society, admittedly not enhancing general trust and well-being. If there are too many such types about, the social fabric starts to tear.
But the defaulter and his like are still part of (if not committed to) the broader community and possibly closely bound into smaller networks (like gangs, for instance). Honour among thieves and all that.
The conditions that make life more or less satisfactory for the individual actor and for the community in general are both complex and many and varied.
What we call morality plays an essential part, with other factors (like shared beliefs and aspirations (and the nature of those beliefs and aspirations), manners, rituals and other cultural elements and so on).
I am still pondering over your good and bad quartets of social thinkers. Interesting.
The good quartet base ethics on justice. The bad quarter try to bypass or displace justice. That's my very crude distinction.
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