Yes, I know it is human nature to categorize virtually everything. As I noted in my last post, it reduces complexity to manageable levels. When it comes to worldviews and philosophies, we categorize them into schools of thought. I hope my readers will resist the tendency to stuff me into one of these pigeonholes. For better or worse, it seems to me I don\u2019t belong in any of them.<\/p>\n
The fundamental truth I defend is the non-existence of objective morality. That does not mean, however, that I belong in the postmodernist category. Postmodernists may claim that moral truths are social constructs, but that doesn\u2019t prevent them from furiously defending their own preferred version as their \u201ctruth,\u201d or defending the alternative preferred versions of certain fashionable identity groups as \u201ctrue\u201d for those groups. I am not a postmodernist because I reject claims by any individual or group whatsoever that they have a legitimate right to apply their moral rules to me, whether they are socially constructed or not. Postmodernists act as if they had this right to dictate to others, regardless of what they say about \u201cmoral relativity.”<\/p>\n
Neither does the fact that I deny the existence of objective morality mean I am a \u201cmoral nihilist.\u201d In fact, we actually live in a state of moral nihilism and chaos today for the very reason that we insist on the believing the illusion that there are objective moral truths. Human beings have an overwhelming innate tendency to believe that their idiosyncratic versions of \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cevil\u201d represent \u201ctruths.\u201d For the most part, they will continue to believe that regardless of what anyone happens to write on the subject. My personal preference would be to live in a world where such an \u201cabsolute\u201d morality prevails. However, this \u201cabsolute\u201d system would be constructed in full knowledge of the fact that it represented a necessary and useful expedient, and most decidedly not that it reflected objective moral truths. It would be possible to alter and amend this \u201cabsolute\u201d system when necessary, but by a means more rational than the current method of allowing those bullies who throw the most flamboyant moralistic temper tantrums to set it up as they please. I propose such a system not because I think we \u201cought\u201d to do it as a matter of objective fact, but merely because I would personally find it expedient as a means of pursuing the goals I happen to have in life, and believe that others may agree it would be expedient as far as they\u2019re concerned as well.<\/p>\n
Finally, the fact that I deny the existence of objective morality most decidedly does not mean that I belong in the \u201cerror theory\u201d category with the likes of J. L. Mackie<\/a>. Mackie claimed he denied the objective existence of moral properties. However, he also claimed that we \u201cought\u201d to do some things, and had a \u201cduty\u201d to do others. I consider this nonsense, and a complete contradiction of his claims about the non-existence of objective good and evil. I recently ran across a paper that illustrates very nicely why I would prefer to stay out of this particular pigeonhole. The paper in question was written by Prof. Bart Streumer<\/a> of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and is entitled The Unbelievable Truth about Morality<\/em><\/a>. The opening paragraph of the paper reads as follows:<\/p>\n Have you ever suspected that even though we call some actions right and other actions wrong, nothing is really right or wrong? If so, there is a philosophical theory that agrees with you: the error theory. According to the error theory, moral judgments are beliefs that ascribe moral properties to actions or to people, but these properties do not exist. The error theory therefore entails that all moral judgments are false. Just as atheism says that God does not exist and that all religious beliefs are false, the error theory says that moral properties do not exist and that all moral judgments are false.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That may seem to be a concise statement of my own beliefs regarding objective moral claims, but hold onto your hat. In what follows the author comes up with a number of highly dubious conclusions about the supposed implications of \u201cerror theory.\u201d In the end he runs completely off the track into the same swamp we were in before, and something indistinguishable from objective morality still prevails. In closing, he triumphantly informs us of his amazing discovery that \u201cerror theory\u201d doesn\u2019t \u201cundermine morality!\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to review the entire paper in detail. Interested readers are welcome to do that on their own. Instead I will focus on some of the things the author imagines follow from error theory. These include the notion that a \u201cpart\u201d of error theory is \u201ccognitivism.\u201d A \u201ccognitivist\u201d is one who claims that moral judgments are \u201cbeliefs.\u201d According to the author, there is a whole \u201cschool\u201d of \u201ccognitivists,\u201d countered by another whole \u201cschool\u201d of \u201cnon-cognitivists.\u201d In his words,<\/p>\n Opponents of cognitivism, who are known as non-cognitivists, deny that these judgments are beliefs. They instead take moral judgments to be non-cognitive attitudes, such as feelings of approval or disapproval.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Really? Have philosophers now become that ignorant of philosophy? Whatever happened to the likes of Shaftesbury<\/a>, Hutcheson<\/a>, and Hume<\/a>? They claimed that moral beliefs and moral \u201cfeelings of approval or disapproval\u201d were inextricably bound together, that the former were the result of reasoning about the latter, and that moral beliefs are, in fact, impossible without these \u201cfeelings.\u201d The very idea that human beings are capable of blindly responding to emotions without forming beliefs about what they imply is referred to by behavioral scientists as \u201cgenetic determinism,\u201d and the term \u201cgenetic determinist\u201d itself is used merely as a pejorative to describe someone who believes in an impossible fantasy. If we are to credit the author, such specimens actually exist somewhere in the dank halls of academia.<\/p>\n It would seem, then, that I can\u2019t be an \u201cerror theorist,\u201d because I find this false dichotomy between \u201ccognitivism\u201d and \u201cnon-cognitivism\u201d absurd, regardless of the author\u2019s claims about how fashionable it is among the philosophers. Not only does the author fail to mention the work of important philosophers who would have deemed this dichotomy nonsense, but he fails to mention any connection between morality and evolution by natural selection. Is he ignorant of a discipline known as evolutionary psychology? Is he completely oblivious to what the neuroscientists have been telling us lately? If \u201cerror theory\u201d rejects the objective existence of moral properties, shouldn\u2019t a paper on the subject at least discuss in passing what reasons there might be for the nearly universal belief in such imaginary objects?\u00a0 Natural selection is certainly among the more plausible explanations.<\/p>\n In what follows, we finally discover the connection between this remarkable dichotomy and the \u201cunbelievable truth\u201d mentioned in the article\u2019s title. According to the paper, an objection to error theory is as follows:<\/p>\n If the error theory is true, all moral judgments are false. The author allows that this is a tough one for error theorists. In his words,<\/p>\n \u2026this objection is hard to answer for error theorists. It is overwhelmingly plausible that it is wrong to torture babies for fun. Error theorists could deny that this entails that the judgment that it is wrong to torture babies for fun is true. But they can only deny this if they endorse non-cognitivism about this judgment, and non-cognitivism conflicts with the error theory. It therefore seems that error theorist must answer this objection by denying that it is wrong to torture babies for fun. But then we should ask what is more plausible: that the error theory is true, or that it is wrong to torture babies for fun. This objection therefore seems to show that we should reject the error theory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now do you see where the false dichotomy comes in? Why on earth should it be \u201coverwhelmingly plausible\u201d that it is wrong to torture babies for fun, regardless of what any individual happens to think about the matter, but as a matter of objective fact? Where is the basis for this \u201cfact?\u201d How did that basis acquire an independent and legitimate authority to dictate to human beings what they ought and ought not to do? How did it come into existence to begin with? Unless one can answer these questions, there is no reason to believe in the existence of objective moral truths, and therefore no rational explanation for the conclusion that any moral claim whatsoever is \u201coverwhelmingly plausible.\u201d It makes as much sense as the claim that there must be unicorns because one really, really believes deep down that it is \u201coverwhelmingly plausible\u201d that there are unicorns. It is only \u201coverwhelmingly plausible\u201d that it is wrong to torture babies because most of us have a very powerful \u201cfeeling\u201d that it is wrong. But (aha, oho!) \u201cerror theorists\u201d are prohibited from referencing that feeling in denying this \u201ctruth\u201d because that would be \u201cnon-cognitivism\u201d and they can\u2019t be \u201cnon-cognitivists!\u201d<\/p>\n The rest of the paper goes something like this: Error theory is true. However, if error theory is true, then the claim that it is wrong to torture babies is false, and that is unbelievable. Therefore, error theory is both true and unbelievable. The conclusion:\u00a0 “Our inability to believe this general error theory therefore prevents it from undermining morality.”\u00a0 Whatever. One thing that the paper very definitely shows is that I am not an \u201cerror theorist.\u201d<\/p>\n What the \u201ctortured babies\u201d argument really amounts to is the claim that truth can be manufactured out of the vacuum by effective manipulation of moral emotions. It\u2019s just another version of the similar arguments Sam Harris<\/a> uses to prop up his equally bogus claim that there are objective moral truths. I note in passing the author\u2019s claim that J. L. Mackie<\/a> was the first philosopher to defend the error theory. That may be true as far as the description of error theory presented in the paper is concerned. However, a far more coherent argument to the effect that objective moral properties do not exist was published by Edvard Westermarck<\/a> more than 70 years earlier. Perhaps it would be helpful if philosophers would at least reference his work in future discussions of error theory and related topics instead of continuing to ignore him.<\/p>\n But to return to the moral of the story, not only am I not a postmodernist, a moral nihilist, or a moral relativist, I am not an \u201cerror theorist\u201d either. I certainly believe that there are facts about the universe, and that they will stubbornly remain facts regardless of whether any conscious being chooses to believe they are facts or not. I simply don\u2019t believe that these facts include objective moral truths. Apparently, at the risk of overdramatizing myself, I must conclude that I represent a church of one. I hope not but, in any case, when it comes to pigeonholing, please don\u2019t round me up as one of the \u201cusual suspects.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIt is wrong to torture babies for fun.
\nSo the judgment that it is wrong to torture babies for fun is true.
\nSo at least one moral judgment is true.
\nSo the error theory is false.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n