Metaethical theories: semantics and ontology

We make value judgments about the actions of ourselves and others all of the time. We say things like: “It was morally wrong for Ted to lie to his wife”, “Given the options, she did the right thing”, “What I said was wrong”, and “It’s morally wrong to torture someone”. What do these kinds of value judgments mean? Are they statements of opinion or statements of fact? Why do we make such judgments? And how do we know what is right or wrong? Metaethics is the subbranch of ethics that deals with answering all of these questions. Metaethicists are interested in finding out what is going on when we make moral claims. Given that there are a wide range of questions that could be asked, it is useful to break Metaethics down into four sub-areas or topics:

Moral ontology- Are there moral facts? 

Moral semantics: What do our moral claims mean?

Moral psychology- Do we have an innate sense of morality (i.e. moral instincts)? Where do our moral judgments come from (reason or emotion)? What motivates us to engage in moral behavior?

Moral epistemology- How do we know what is right and wrong?

In this post, I will focus on moral ontology and semantics, following up with subsequent posts on moral psychology and moral epistemology.

Semantics

People often dismiss questions when they hinge upon the meaning of words. But it’s important to carefully spell out how someone understands a concept in order to avoid confusion and talking past one another. If two people are using the same word in different ways, then they are not necessarily disagreeing. They disagree about what the word means, but they may not disagree about the topic that is at issue. Some disagreements can be alleviated by checking a dictionary. But that is only if the discussion hinges upon how a word is ordinarily used in the native language. Philosophical discussions of commonly used words, like ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief’, are meant to give richer and more precise definitions of the concepts than necessary for having everyday conversations. Philosophers try to tease apart different theories of what these terms mean by testing them against possible counter examples and by looking for inconsistencies or variations of meaning in common usage.

What does it mean to say that abortion is wrong? There are a number of competing views, and many different ways of classifying them. Without trying to justify any one classification over another, let’s just say that there are those who say that statements about morality are propositions—statements about the world that are true or false—and those who deny that they are propositions (see chart 1). First, I'll discuss those who deny that moral statements are propositional.

Noncognitvists argue that moral claims are expressions of one’s emotional state (emotivism), prescriptions for how to act (prescriptivism), or an articulation of ones’ desires (desirism). To better understand these variations, here are noncognitivist translations of the sentence “abortion is wrong”:

Emotivism: Abortion, boo! (Giving birth, yay!).
Prescriptivism: No one should have abortions (Pregnant women should keep their babies).
Desirism: I desire that no one has an abortion (I desire that pregnant women deliver their babies).

Noncognitivists think that moral disagreements are misguided. When people argue about morality, they are really just exchanging their own emotions, desires, and prescriptions for good behavior, not making factual claims about value. It would be like two people arguing about whether licorice tastes good. (S1: Licorice, yuck! S2: Licorice, yum!)

Cognitivists argue that moral claims are meant to be factual claims. Nihilists think that moral claims are statements about how the world is, but that all they are all false. They argue that there are no such properties as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ in the world, just link there are, presumably, no such properties as ‘being possessed by demons’, or ‘having the capacity for free energy’. Nihilists are then committed to two claims: one semantic, the other ontological.

Ontology

Subjectivists think that moral statements have truth value (i.e. they are true or false), but that they refer to subjective properties, like funniness. If people are amused and laugh at a joke, then the joke is funny. Whether or not something has an objective property, like ‘squareness’, depends upon whether the object in question has certain features (e.g. four equal sides). If people come to believe that a square is a triangle, and start trying to push it through a triangular shaped hole, that does not make it a triangle. A square is a square because of features that are independent of what anyone thinks about it (c.f. Huemer 2007). On subjectivism, if someone believes that something is morally good, then it is. Mental states of subjects are the truth makers of moral statements. One variation of subjectivism is relativism, where something is good if there are individuals belonging to some culture/historical time period/belief system that think it’s good. Another would be divine command theory, which states that the mental states of a particular subject (i.e. God) determines moral truth.

Lastly, there are the objectivists. Moral objectivity is often defined in various ways, but here is a characterization that I find plausible. Moral statements are objective if they are constitutively independent of human attitudes (c.f. Huemer 2007), eternal (their truth value does not change over time), and universal (apply to all rational agents). Objectivists roughly fall under two camps: reductionists and nonreductionists. Reductionists think that moral language, such as ‘good’ or ‘wrongness’ are about objective properties in the world, but that they can be translated or reduced to, for example, properties detectable via the scientific method (e.g. happiness levels of conscious creatures). There are many scientists and science popularizers that are proponents of such a view (Harris 2011, Shermer 2015).

Nonreductionists think that moral properties cannot be reduced to statements that refer to natural properties. One variation of nonreductionism is intuitionism, which states that moral properties are objective, but that they can only be characterized by words like ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’, and ‘wrong’. Certain actions are wrong because they are just wrong. While this may sound circular, the same kind of circularity is used to explain why basic logical and mathematical facts are true. Why is 2+2=4? Why is it the case that if B is larger than A and C is larger than B, that C is larger than A? Some claims are just self-evidently true, requiring no further explanation. 

A final distinction is between singularism and pluralism about objective morality. There are those who think there is only one correct set of moral guidelines and duties, and those who think there are alternative sets of moral frameworks, perhaps relative to different kinds of rational agents (e.g. space aliens). 

With such a diverse pool of views on the semantics and ontology of moral statements, where does one even begin? Like any other philosophical issues, these views need to be argued for and only one of them can be correct. While discussions of moral semantics and ontology are only typically found in the seminar halls of a philosophy department, these issues matter. Throughout history, humans have taken morality so seriously that they have gone to war over disagreements about value and how societies should be structured. If someone claims to be a nihilist or a relativist, then it might be irrational to engage in moral arguments with other people. Likewise, if someone is claiming that there are objective right and wrong answers, then they are committing themselves to some version of objectivism. No matter how hard one may try to avoid doing moral philosophy, everyone is committed to some kind of metaethical view, and we should try to reflect upon its sustainability in light of philosophical objections and relative strengths/weaknesses of the competing alternatives. 

Supplementary material

Chart 1.

Chart 2. 

Further reading

SEP on Moral antirealism
SEP on Moral realism
IEP on metaethics

Works cited

Harris, S. (2011). The moral landscape: How science can determine human values. Simon and Schuster.

Huemer, M. (2007). Ethical intuitionism. Springer.

Shermer, M. (2015). The moral arc: How science and reason lead humanity toward truth, justice, and freedom. Macmillan.

Moral disagreement and the quest for an objective moral theory

“Non-Religious Ethics is at a very early stage. We cannot yet predict whether, as in Mathematics, we will all reach agreement. Since we cannot know how Ethics will develop, it is not irrational to have high hopes”.   Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 1984

Ethical theories aim to explain why certain actions are right or wrong. They also aim to inform us of how we ought to make ethical decisions. Instead of approaching the subject of ethics by reflecting upon some abstract set of principles, some just appeal the moral authority of holy books or directly to the God those books were inspired by. Some would even consider the appeal to holy books to be an ethical theory of its own (i.e. divine command theory). Religious texts may offer moral wisdom and sound ethical principles to live by, but philosophers have been developing ethical theories—without appealing to God—for over two thousand years. Out of all of the theoretical options, is it reasonable to think that one ethical theory should be preferred? That is to say, is there an ethical theory that is objectively true, rendering all other theories false? There are several reasons for skepticism.

First, there are some who think that without God, morality has no foundation (*This problem arises particularly for philosophers because most are nonbelievers). The idea is that without some kind of objective standard of right and wrong—independent of anyone’s opinion—morality lacks a proper basis. Without an independent basis for morality, nothing is really right or wrong.There is much to say about this, but I will only raise two quick related objections. First, depending on how one understands the independence requirement, mathematical, logical, and scientific truths may also lack an “objective” basis. If morality has an objective foundation, it will be like mathematics or logic, starting from rationally intuitive, or self-evidently true starting axioms. Furthermore, on this reading of objectivity, even the existence of God might not be sufficient for objective morality. To cover some of the same ground as the old Euthyphro dillema, what makes the standards that God commands objective? Is it that since he is all knowing, he can perform all of the necessary moral calculations to determine what is right and wrong? Is it that the mind of God such that no moral calculations are necessary, and that God just automatically knows what is right and wrong via some inner moral sense that is perfect? Objectivity can be understood in weaker terms. Just like Descartes has been criticized for his defense of a strong conception of knowledge (i.e. requiring absolute certainty), we can criticize certain philosophers (e.g. William Lane Craig) for proposing a conception of objectivity that is too strong.

Second, there exists lots of disagreement about morality. The existence of moral disagreement across different cultures and individuals convinces many that moral relativism follows and that there just aren’t any objective moral truths to discover. The fact that there is moral disagreement does not refute objectivism, as it could be the case that most people are bad at moral reasoning or are ignorant of the relevant facts. Just as in the case of when you find people disagreeing on Facebook about the answer to a mathematical equation, doesn’t show that there isn’t a right solution, people disagreeing about the answer to a moral question doesn’t show there isn’t a right one. Some people are just bad at reasoning or ignorant of the facts relevant to solving a given problem. However, disagreement that obtains when two parties agree on all of the relevant facts, and employ sound logical reasoning, does seem problematic for objectivism. Persistent moral disagreement is not just thought to be theoretical, but actual, amongst experts in moral philosophy. To be clear, the presence of moral agreement is not required for objectivism to be true. It is not as if moral claims are made true by virtue of a consensus. That would be a really weird metaphysical view. The idea is that a consensus amongst experts would strongly suggest that there are objective answers to questions of right and wrong and that its absence suggests the falsity of objectivism.

The late philosopher Derek Parfit argued that most moral disagreement amongst experts is illusory. It is often assumed that the major ethical theories (e.g. utilitarianism, contractualism, and Kantianism) are incompatible with one another. But Parfit argued that once the views are properly understood, they actually complement one another and can be combined into overarching ethical theory he called ‘triple theory’ (1, 2). Parfit thinks the predicament moral philosophers find themselves in is similar to those of several hikers climbing different sides of the same mountain. It is only once the hikers reach the mountain’s summit, that they realize that they were all climbing the same mountain all along. Parfit’s claims are highly controversial, but worth taking seriously. For if his claims regarding moral disagreement are true, then there may be a strong case for moral objectivism.

It may be argued that constraining the analysis of ethical theories to those espoused by contemporary English speaking moral philosophers may be unjustified. What about all of the other forms of moral diversity in the world? For example, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the views of conservatives in the United States, all offer contrary accounts of morality than those of contemporary philosophers. The psychologist Jonathan Haidt, has deconstructed differing systems of morality around the world into five or six basic values: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, respect, and purity (3). Most moral philosophers, and political liberals, tend to view the first three values as central to moral theorizing, whereas religious conservatives tend to emphasize the importance of the last three. Haidt’s theory of moral foundations might show that there exist different starting points for moral theorizing, and that no one set of starting value assumptions is more valid than another. Moral pluralism, the view which states that there are several objectively true moral theories, might find support in Haidt’s work.

A response I find natural is to say that all of these differing value systems fail to stand up to the standards of rationality and logic. They appeal to a combination of false religious beliefs, the cultural practices or prejudices of one’s community, and negative emotional responses (e.g. disgust), all of which we have good reason to reject. The ethical theories proposed by philosophers are intended to be as far removed from prejudice and uninformed opinion as possible. Moral philosophers spend most of their lives developing objective reasons and arguments for why certain moral principles are plausible and should be accepted by any rational person. Since the ethical views espoused by religious believers are, for the most part, not well-considered, motivated by logical consistency, or backed by rational arguments, there is reason to suspect their beliefs about morality are mistaken. It may sound elitist to make such claims, but I think most of us would agree to the argument’s application with respect to most other domains of inquiry (e.g. science, mathematics). Scientists are much more likely to be right about an issue than laypeople who are completely uninformed. Why shouldn’t the same be true about ethics? To be clear, I do not want to say that the major religions get everything wrong about morality. I just want to make the point since their moral teachings were not based upon the same methodological standards as contemporary moral theories, we have some reason to doubt that they have equal claim to truth.

Assuming that most of the world’s population simply gets things wrong when it comes to morality, and that most moral philosophers are actually in agreement about the central tenets of an ethical theory, are there any other obstacles that may prevent the theory from being objective? One possibility is that aliens, very unlike human beings, may have systems of morality that are as well-considered, motivated by logical consistency and rational arguments, but that are incompatible with our “objective moral theory”. Here, the problem of fundamental moral disagreement resurfaces, but in the form of a disagreement between members of separate species. This would be a problem for objectivism, but it’s a theoretical possibility that obtains for mathematics, science, and perhaps even logic as well. We either could entertain relativism or pluralism regarding all domains of inquiry or we could maintain a faith in objectivism across the board and hope to find a consensus amongst all rational creatures.

A philosopher who, in my view, pioneered the path for an objective moral theory was the 19^th century thinker Henry Sidgwick (4). Sidgwick defended a sophisticated version of utilitarianism that proved to be influential to the great moral philosophers of the 20^th century (e.g. Parfit) (5). Reflecting upon the views of Sidgwick and Parfit have led me to seriously reconsider the merits of objectivism. While I did not flesh out either of their views in this post, I think there is much to admire about their philosophical projects, enough to spend several future blog posts discussing and appreciating.

References

1) Parfit, D., & Scheffler, S. (2011). On what matters: volume one (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press.
2) Parfit, D., & Scheffler, S. (2011). On what matters: volume two (Vol. 2). Oxford University Press.
3) Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Vintage.
4) Sidgwick, H. (1907). The methods of ethics. Hackett Publishing.

5) de Lazari-Radek, K., & Singer, P. (2014). The point of view of the universe: Sidgwick and contemporary ethics. OUP Oxford.

Foundations of morality

At a very young age, children are able to tell the difference between social conventions (e.g. raising your hand in class) and moral norms (e.g. do not kill people). One major difference between the two is that social conventions are only binding in certain contexts or settings whereas moral norms are taken to be binding across all contexts and settings. At least some moral norms are thought by some to be instinctual or self-evident, whereas all social conventions are learned. A final, yet controversial, distinction is that moral norms have a basis in fact, whereas social conventions are invented for practical purposes. Over time, we humans believe to have made moral progress, and will continue to make discoveries as to what kinds of actions are morally right or wrong. Just like there are facts about mathematics that were unknown to mathematicians of the past, there are probably facts about morality that we have not yet discovered. As stated previously, the comparison of morality to mathematics is a controversial one. Those who make such comparisons usually adopt a view called moral realism. 

Moral norms	Social conventions
Universally binding	Not universally binding
Instinctual or Self-evident	Learned and not self-evident
Factual basis	Invented

Moral realism is the view that states that there are facts of the matter as to whether a particular action is right or wrong, regardless of the context, culture, or time period. Moral realists typically believe that slavery was morally acceptable in the United States during the 17^th century, but that the practice was still morally wrong at the time. Moral realists think the answers to moral questions—like mathematical questions (e.g. 2+2=4)—are timeless, and that people of past generations who got the answers wrong were either ignorant of some relevant facts or incompetent at doing their moral calculations.

A competing view, moral relativism, states that there are just facts about what is wrong in a given context, culture, or historical time period. To contrast, the moral realist will say things like “harming animals without any justification is wrong”, whereas the moral relativist will say things like “harming animals without any justification is wrong in western cultures, but morally acceptable amongst the Hopi Indians.” On moral relativism, facts about morality have to be relativized to a certain culture, time period or even an individual. 

Lastly, moral anti-realism denies the existence of moral facts. The anti-realist might believe that moral claims are invented by humans to preserve the peace or that they are the product of our emotional reactions and evolutionary history. The anti-realist would deny many of the distinctions between moral norms and social conventions and argue that moral norms are just a sub-class of social conventions. Now moral anti-realists do not deny that moral talk is useless or irrational. Rather, most accept that moral talk is indispensable, or an incredibly useful fiction. Furthermore, being a moral antirealist does not prohibit one from endorsing normative theories such as utilitarianism or social contract theory. Anti-realism is meta-ethical view, one that just makes claims about what moral language amounts to.

Moral realism is perhaps the common sense view. Most major religions imply a kind of moral realism by having God as the foundation of moral facts. For instance, one might believe that something is right or wrong because God—the moral authority—commanded it. A common challenge raised to the moral realist is the existence of moral diversity. People of different cultural, religious, and philosophical backgrounds often disagree about what is right and wrong. If so many people disagree about what is right and wrong, how can there be a fact of the matter? Furthermore, how can moral disagreements be resolved? Moral realists typically respond by saying that moral diversity exists because moral questions are hard to answer. Moral disagreements should in principle be resolvable, but it might take extensive debate and discussion to understand why such disagreements exist. Take for instance meat eating. 

Say that Tom believes that factory farm meat eating is wrong and Sally believes that it is morally acceptable. What could be the source of their disagreement? One possibility is that Sally and Tom disagree about other matters of fact. For instance, Sally might believe that animals don’t feel pain or experience emotions while Tom believes animals can experience pain and suffering in a way similar to human beings. If this were the case, the moral realist would have an easy way to settle the moral disagreement. The right answer to the moral question (i.e. Is eating meat morally acceptable?) hinges on whether animals can experience pain and suffering. 

Regardless of what one thinks about the ontological status of moral claims (i.e. whether they're factual or not), there are other unrelated kinds of views one may hold about how to determine what is right and wrong. Philosophers develop theories to try and make sense of how we arrive at answers to moral questions. In a later post, I will discuss the area of moral philosophy that deals with such theories about morality known as normative ethics. 

Next week, I will discuss the evolution of biological organisms, the theory of natural selection and the many misconceptions about both. I will also assess the atheist philosopher Jerry Fodor’s critique of the theory. Fodor argues that natural selection cannot be true because it involves a contradiction. I will try and explain where I think Fodor goes wrong.