Ethics

What does "morally wrong" really mean? Something that offends my parents, the local police, the local clergy, a specialized group of philosophers, or my peer group at the golf club, or my occasionally very forgiving conscience?

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Consider the question, ‘Is cannibalism morally wrong?’ One can first ask whether this question is about some sort of fact. And if it isn’t, does that mean that all possible answers are personal opinions, social conventions, or something else such that ‘true’ and ‘false’ simply have no meaning here. Of course, even if there is a fact of the matter with regard to this question (and hence it makes sense to say that answers to the question may be either true or false), could anyone ever know what it is?

Those who think there are facts of the form ‘such and such is morally right or wrong’ are called moral realists. If, in addition, they think that such facts can be known, they are called cognitivists. Those who deny there is any fact of the matter about which acts are morally wrong are called non-realists or anti-realists. Some non-realists think that their position entails that all moral judgements are therefore meaningless. But others disagree. They think that although there are no moral facts, or anyway none that anyone can know, moral judgements are still meaningful, albeit neither true nor false. In other words, the language of morals is meaningful, but it doesn’t produce conclusions properly called ‘knowledge’. Such people are known as non-cognitivists.

In many ways, cognivitism is the most immediately attractive of the positions. If there are such things as moral facts, and one can know them, then people stand some chance of building a rigorous ethics on a secure foundation. Moral values would be as real as atoms or Krispy Kreme donuts and, if we could know them, they would be as indisputable and authoritative as basic facts about the physical world around us.

The problem is that it is hard to see how there could be such things as moral facts. Facts generally concern things we can see, measure or observe, directly or indirectly. But the idea that we could see, measure or observe moral principles seems to be absurd. It is true that there are also facts about how people feel and what they think, but these are facts only about the people themselves, not about the general nature of reality. So even though there are facts about what people feel or believe to be right or wrong, that doesn’t give moral values the kind of objectivity moral realism demands. Moreover, how could one ever know what these facts in the way cognitivism claims? It is hard to even imagine how this is possible without positing some kind of moral sense or intuition that could detect these facts.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the alternatives to realism are any more attractive, however. Those non-realists, like A. J. Ayer (1910-89), who claim that moral judgements are not true or false but literally meaningless seem to rob us of one of the most important features of human life. Can we imagine living without any moral values at all?

Most non-cognitivists, on the other hand, don’t want to go that far. They claim that moral claims are not about facts that can be known, but they are far from meaningless. Moral sentimentalists, such as Adam Smith and David Hume, argue that moral judgements spring from natural benevolent impulses, such as sympathy and affection, which are rooted in emotional reactions to others and their conduct. People say it’s wrong to hurt people needlessly, for example, because they can sympathetically feel the pain that results and because that sort of action offends their moral sensibilities. In a sense, therefore, one feels that needless harm is something to be avoided. Reason’s role is to help us order these feelings, figure out the causes and effects relevant to the situation, and respond effectively. Reasoning, from this point of view, does not discover objective moral truths.

Another way to think about moral judgments as meaningful and in a sense ground them in facts (though not generally the kinds of facts realists are after) is to say that what's morally wrong is what violates a rule or set of rules we have in fact agreed to follow. So, if as a matter of fact I have made a promise but then as a matter of fact I have broken that promise, then as a matter of fact I have done something wrong. But this sort of approach only works for those who have agreed to or engaged the rules (in this case the rules of promise-keeping).

Realists will object, however, that this way of thinking leaves morality without any proper basis at all. If, ultimately, everything just rests on feeling or agreement, then how can people argue with those whose feelings are malevolent or perverse, not to mention those who lack moral feeling altogether, or those who haven't agreed to the rules?

The dilemma is therefore stark. Cognitivists believe that morality is grounded in facts that just don’t seem to be there, while non-cognitivists believe morality is grounded in sentiments or agreements that don’t seem to provide it with anything like an adequate basis.

For myself, I run with the anti-realist non-cognitivists who think that moral language is nevertheless meaningful. But I also acknowledge that realists and non-cognitivists might be right.

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