Moral Objectivity

Mackie

• Meta-ethics (Second order questions)
• Normative ethics (First order questions)
• Applied ethics (First order questions)

Meta-ethics

Do moral truths exist?

Correspondence Theory - statement linked to reality. In morality this means moral realism

non-cognitivism - moral statements don't describe reality (!= true or false). They only express emotions

anti-realist - no objective reality (anti-realist),

error theory

against the realist:"The ordinary user of moral language means to say something about whatever it is that he characterises morally"

and against the non-cognitivist:
1.relativity - descriptive relativism: different moral facts in different societies and cultures

1. moral disagreements between cultures
2. best explanation is not that societies are struggling and failing to find a moral truth. But that they are living by rules that justify their society
3. Therefore: we can reject moral realism

"Things are moral because you define them to be moral, or moral because they are designed as such (monogamy example)"

• OBJECTION: moral realism applied to different concrete situations
• COUNTER: specific moral beliefs aren't formed from basic moral axioms

2.queerness

• If moral realism were true then there would facts in the world quite different from anything else
• If moral realism were true then there would faculties to comprehend it different from any other faculties
• OBJECTION: essence, number, identity, solidity, inertia, substance: are all queer entities
• COUNTER: satisfactory accounts of each of these can be given empirically
• OBJECTION: Chesterton - example of human body

Utilitarianism

Morally correction action is that which elicits the greatest level of sum happiness for the greatest number of people.

1. Intuitive Plausibility: net happiness seems good
2. Explanatory power: simple principle
3. Radical Edge: Provides an objective standpoint

• OBJECTION: past can't predict the future, give example
• COUNTER: percentage possibilities
• OBJECTION: using percentages the worst utilitarian response can lead to a better moral outcome

Rule-utilitarianism

• OBJECTION: we can't dedicate time to work out percentages in real life, we could get them wrong
• COUNTER: set rules that generally work
  • act utilitarianism - this just collapse back into individual actions
  • rule-utilitarianism - we learn from the past, we accept and adopt other people's experience and our own
• OBJECTION: but we then seem to have to act according to moral rules
• COUNTER: using percentages the worst utilitarian response can lead to a better moral outcome

• OBJECTION: how do you define utility?

Kant's Ethics

sets out writing about moral obligation

1. 'Good will' is the only good not impacted by outcome
   1. Duty

Note: people can act in accordance with duty, without acting from duty ('prudent merchant who charges fairly to maintain custom')

1. 1. Immediate inclination - for pleasure (helping someone because it makes you feel good)
   2. Instrumental inclination - for eventual pleasure (prudent merchant)

Hypothetical Imperatives

Immediate and Instrumental inclinations

Categorical Imperatives

Must always act in that way, regardless of ends.

1. PERFECT DUTY : "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law".
2. PERFECT ANTI-DUTY"I will make false promises to get cash" - cannot be universalised as promises would collapse as an institution
3. IMPERFECT DUTY : "I will ignore those in need so as not to inconvenience myself". Universalisable, but help would be needed by you at some point, so it would be irrational. One must give to charity, but also to yourself!

• OBJECTION : Axe-Murderer
• COUNTER : Kant says we should follow this
• OBJECTION : to make a large purchase withdraw all your money from your bank: banks will collapse if universalised
• COUNTER : modify it to make sure it doesn't bring down the banking system
• OBJECTION : Like being groped on trains - too permissive
• COUNTER : further moral considerations
• OBJECTION : promise to do something at a certain time on a certain date - too arbitrary
• COUNTER : certain level of specificity needs to be applied

Abortion

'A defence of Abortion', special cases for abortion, but permits that:

1. the foetus is a human being
2. all people have a right to life
3. foetus has a right to life

Famous violinist is attached to you, without your permission, you are expected to keep them alive

• It would be above and beyond the call of duty to keep them alive. Foetus' right to live does not extend to the use of the mother's body. Even in case of rape, the right to life isn't diminished.
• Consent, does give the foetus a right to the mother's body.
  • But people seeds, you could have prevented the pregnancy doesn't give the foetus a right
  • Rape, you could have prevented by a hysterectomy, therefore the foetus has a right to the womb.
  • Therefore, no foetus has a right to the womb.
• OBJECTION : Difference between killing and allowing to die. Violinist is allowing, foetus is killing
• COUNTER : Both cases you are trying to regain control of your body, if either survive you wouldn't try and kill them?
• COUNTER : doing/allowing. Someone poisons someone, vs, someone fails to give an antidote
• OBJECTION : natural-artificial objection
• OBJECTION : Kant's categorical perogative

Moral Responsibility

Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP): You are morally responsible for something if you could not have done otherwise.

Consequence Argument

1. Action A is a result world state at Big Bang B and Laws of nature L
2. We can't refute the relation between B and L
3. Therefore we can't refute A

• Incompatibalism - Freedom and responsibility are incompatible with determinism
• Compatibalism - determinism is compatible with free will and responsibility

• Liberatarianism - We have free will and can be morally responsible, but the argument for Incompatibalism is true
• Hard Incompatibalism - the argument for Incompatibalism is true and we don't have freewill or can be morally responsible

No freedom to do otherwise

1. Black wants Jones to murder Smith
2. If Jones murders Smith Black won't step in
3. If Jones decides against murdering Smith Black will force him to
4. Jones could not have done otherwise (PAP is false!)

New PAP

What about the mentally ill and those coerced into doing things, Frankfurt suggests: "A person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he did it only because he could not have done otherwise". Jones wasn't coerced in state 3, so he is morally responsible.

• OBJECTION - Either Jones lives ina deterministic world in which case he isn't morally responsible, or the world isn't deterministic and Black won't be able to predict whether Jones will carry out the act.
• COUNTER - Black plans to intervene only after Jones has decided against the act. Jones cannot do other than x, but he can decide to do other than x.
• OBJECTION - sign, such as thinking of Smith's children, freely taken
• COUNTER - This flicker of freedom is too insubstantial to ground our judgement of moral responsibility.