Topics Ethics

Question Recently a philosopher replied: "Many slaveholders didn't think that what they were doing was morally wrong, but it was." The implication is that the slaveholders had a merely "subjective", local standard of conduct, but the philosopher has an "objective", universal one that allows her to see the limits of the slaveholder's conscience. How does one achieve this objective standard and how can one test it to see if it isn't only a different form of subjectivism?

Accepted:
November 26, 2009

Comments

First of all, a spot of jargon. Philosophers often draw a distinction between (i) the field of 'ethics' (or sometimes 'normative ethics'), which is basically concerned with the rightness and wrongness of various types of behaviour; and (ii) that of 'meta-ethics', which is not really concerned with behaviour at all, but instead looks at the epistemological or ontological status of those notions of rightness and wrongness themselves (e.g. whether they have any truly objective foundation, or are merely expressions of subjective sentiments).

Now, when someone -- and it doesn't matter who they happen to be, whether a professional philosopher or just an ordinary civilian -- claims that slavery is wrong, what they are making is an ethical claim. But nothing whatsoever need be presupposed about the meta-ethical status of such an utterance, or even about the opinion the speaker might happen to have on that meta-ethical question. Ethics and meta-ethics are distinct fields. There are certain links between them, of course, but each one can nevertheless be regarded as autonomous within its own proper domain. Some people who make ethical claims like this that might also believe that they're stating objective moral facts. But other people might say the very same thing, and yet believe that they're not really doing anything more in this than simply giving vent to their own personal feelings on the matter.

I have absolutely no idea what stance the philosopher you cited might have on this meta-ethical issue -- if, indeed, he/she has any firm meta-ethical opinions at all. As for me, I do have meta-ethical opinions: I happen to be satisfied that these moral utterances can indeed do no more than merely express subjective moral sentiments, rather than latching on to any absolute moral standards. And yet, as far as the ethics (as opposed to the meta-ethics) of the matter are concerned, I'm just as comfortable in declaring that slavery is wrong as even the staunchest meta-ethical objectivist would be. Indeed, I'm happy to dress things up in even more emphatic terms, to bang the table and declare that slavery really is wrong, absolutely and unequivocally. And yet I would contend that this still needn't be interpreted as carrying any meta-ethical connotations at all. It could equally well be taken to mean no more than that these particular moral sentiments are especially strong in me.

The contrary viewpoint, the one that you feel is implied by the cited remark, will rest on two principles: (i) that there are certain objective moral absolutes 'out there', waiting to be discovered; and (ii) that we are nowadays somehow better equipped to discover them than our predecessors were. Personally, I regard both of these principles as utterly implausible. For the sake of balance, I should observe that many other philosophers would disagree with me in this: the meta-ethical debate is in a perfectly healthy state, and ongoing. But I don't believe that our subjective moral attitudes are (or even could be) derived from any rationally grasped moral absolutes; rather, I regard any opinions about such alleged moral absolutes as mere post hoc rationalizations of whatever subjective attitudes we just happen to find ourselves with. Now, some of those attitudes might be genetically programmed into us by evolution, and consequently common to all mankind, and I acknowledge that this might be regarded as constituting some degree of objectivity -- or, perhaps better, 'intersubjectivity'. But any such genetic influence will need to be balanced against cultural influences, and those latter influences are notoriously multifarious and inconsistent across different families, different classes, different societies, different religions, different historical eras, etc., so much so that it's actually extremely hard to identify a single ethical precept that everyone, in every age, would agree in accepting.

So, as far as the meta-ethics of the case are concerned, I would contend that the historical slaveholder, if he could see us now, would be no more or less correct in condemning us for (let's say) disregarding the natural order of mankind, than we are in condemning him for holding his slaves. We feel that what he was doing is wrong; he feels the opposite; and there's no independent standard for adjudicating between us. And yet, unless I happen to be participating in an explicitly meta-ethical discussion, I would still have no qualms whatsoever about criticising slavery in the strongest possible terms and without any further qualification. I have been as culturally conditioned as the next man, to find it utterly abhorrent.