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The Objectivity of Morality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

R. G. Swinburne
R. G. Swinburne
Affiliation:
University of Keele
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Extract

If I say “we are now living in England” or “grass is green in summer’ or ‘the cat is on the mat’ what I say will normally be true or false—the statements are true if they correctly report how things are, or correspond to the facts; and if they do not do these things, they are false. Such a statement will only fail to have a truth-value if its referring expressions fail to refer (e.g. there is no object to which ‘the cat’ can properly be taken to refer); or if the statement lies on the border between truth and falsity (e.g. the grass is blue-green) so that it is as true to say that the statement is true as to say that it is false. Are moral judgments normally true or false in the way in which the above statements are true or false? I will term the view that they are objectivism and the view that they are not subjectivism. The objectivist maintains that it is as much a fact about an action that it is right or wrong as that it causes pain or takes a long time to perform. The subjectivist maintains that saying than an action is right or wrong is not stating a fact about it but merely expressing approval of it or commending it or doing some such similar thing. I wish in this paper, first, to show that all arguments for subjectivism manifestly fail, and secondly to produce a strong argument for objectivism. But, to start with, some preliminaries.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 51 , Issue 195 , January 1976 , pp. 5 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1976

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References

1 David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, III, i, 1.

2 See Hare, R. M., The Language of Morals, (Oxford, 1952), pp. 80f.Google Scholar

3 It is the first form of naturalism which is open to Hare's well-known objection. ‘If it were true that a good A meant the same as an A which is C (when “C” is a “descriptive” term) then it would be impossible to use the sentence “An A which is C is good” in order to commend A's which are C; for this sentence would be analytic and equivalent to “an A which is C is C”. Now it seems clear that we do use sentences of the form “an A which is C is good” in order to commend A's which are C; and that when we do so, we are not doing the same sort of thing as when we say “A puppy is a young dog”, that is to say, commending is not the same sort of linguistic activity as defining’ (Hare, R. M., The Language of Morals (Oxford, 1952), p. 90f)Google Scholar. The second form of naturalism does not assert that ‘good’ means ‘C’ (where ‘C’ is some descriptive term). However even naturalists who subscribe to a naturalistic theory of the first form have a defence. They can point out that some statements which ascribe natural properties to objects are on occasion ‘used to commend’. One may commend by saying ‘He is an extremely persevering student’, ‘He will certainly get a first’, ‘This is real leather’, etc. So the fact that moral judgments are often used to commend does not show that they do not ascribe properties of any kind.

4 The naturalist must hold that all, not merely some, true moral judgments about particular objects are propositions entailed by propositions correctly reporting their possession of natural properties. If he claims that there are some true moral judgments of which the latter is not true the principle of supervenience makes his position very implausible, as has been well argued by Blackburn. See Blackburn, S. W., ‘Moral Realism’ in Casey, John (ed.), Morality and Moral Reasoning (London, 1971).Google Scholar

5 Ayer, A. J., Language, Truth, and Logic (London, 1946), p. 111.Google Scholar

6 See especially chapters 6 and 11.

7 For this objection see, among others, Stevenson, C. L. and Hare, R. M.. Thus Stevenson: ‘Persons who make opposed ethical judgments may (so far as theoretical possibility is concerned) continue to do so in the face of all manner of reasons that their argument includes, even though neither makes any logical or empirical error’ (Ethics and Language (New Haven, 1944), p. 30f)Google Scholar. And Hare: ‘It is possible for two people without logical absurdity to agree about the description but disagree about the evaluation’ (‘Descriptivism’, republished in Hudson, W. D. (ed.), The Is/Ought Question (London, 1969). See p. 246)Google Scholar.

8 Op. cit., p. 31.

9 Op. cit., p. 103. Blackburn seems to hold that this entailment only holds for some beliefs; but that claim suffices for our purposes.

10 Stevenson explains ‘opposition of attitudes’ as being ‘opposition of purposes, aspirations, wants, preferences, desires, and so on’ (op. cit., p. 3). But this is very vague, and confuses things which need to be kept distinct, if any clear account of morality is to be given. For one can have agreement of ‘purposes’ but opposition of ‘wants’. Does one then have moral agreement?