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Is “Secular Moral Theory” Really Relatively Young?

Brian Leiter

It is sometimes said (e.g., by Parfit, by Brink, and others) that "secular moral theory" is a relative new field compared to systematic theorizing in the natural sciences, so it is not surprising that there is more disagreement about ethical matters since we haven't had as much time (or made as much effort) to make systematic theoretical progress on the problems.  I confess this has always struck me as a somewhat implausible claim.  Consider:  a perfectly typical "Introduction to Ethics" class (in an ordinary, secular university) might well start with the systematic moral theory of Aristotle, whereas the typical "Introduction to Physics" class will never start with Aristotle's physical theory.   Current "secular" ethical theory traces its intellectual routes back over two thousand years.  And even if the standard secular ethical canon leaps over a millenium or so, it's still the case that contemporary secular ethical theory has a history of 250 years.  Yet can it claim as much progress as "secular" biology, which has a history of about 150 years?  

What do readers make of the argument that secular ethical theory is relatively young therefore we should be optimistic about its progress over time?   Post only once, comments may take awhile to appear.

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42 responses to “Is “Secular Moral Theory” Really Relatively Young?”

  1. Matt

    Hi Brian: I don't know what to make of the "optimism" claim, but I think you're right to point out that an Intro to Ethics course can typically start in ancient philosophy, whereas an Intro to Physics surely doesn't begin with material that old, and so the comparative "youth" of moral philosophy seems like a stretch… But I wonder about the implication that starting out with Aristotle could mark a beginning of *secular* ethical theory. Doesn't Aristotle make much of imitation of the divine, and of "god and nous," and of divine and human happiness, etc., in the Nicomachean Ethics? (Of course, there are readings Aristotle that marginalize or reinterpret its theistic aspects, thus secularizing it… however, I admit that I'm way outside my area here; I work neither in ethics nor in ancient, so I'm open to being corrected on this.)

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  2. Dwight Furrow

    I suppose the idea that secular moral theory is a recent development makes sense if (1) you assume that Kant is really just an apologist for Christian moral theory, and (2)you emphasize the fact that Aristotle was largely written out of the canon for many years.

    If secular moral theory is understood as moral theory with no trace of the noumenal, then secular moral theory is indeed very young.

    But I'm not sure that tells us much about the prospects for agreement down the road.

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  3. Rico Vitz

    The premise strikes me as clearly false — see, e.g., not only the work of Aristotle but also that of Hume. I suspect that one could make it seem more plausible by stipulating a very specific definition of 'systematic theorizing in the natural sciences' and, therefore, by changing the comparison class. That said, my guess is that such efforts would begin to sound a bit like a seen from 'Fletch' — "… well … yes … but the 'very end' was really sudden" — but maybe I'm insufficiently optimistic on this issue.

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  4. Alan Nelson

    I think this kind of comparison between "ages" of disciplines is bogus. Condensed matter physics, genome sequencing, etc. are young theories that seem to have little trouble with "progress"

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  5. Zembla

    In philosophy, "…theories rise and decline, more as a function of baffled boredom than anything else; and the enterprise shows a disturbing lack of that cumulative character that is so impressive in disciplines like astronomy molecular biology and genetics" ( http://psychweb.cisat.jmu.edu/ToKSystem/My%20ToK%20Papers/The%20ToK%20and%20Unification%20of%20Psych.pdf).

    Thought this was relevant as it explains the apparent lack of progress in secular moral theory. Knowledge in the hard sciences is cumulative, knowledge in the social sciences and the humanities is not. This is why few people now read Sir Isaac Newton's original work, whereas Aristotle is still (as you say) widely read. The social sciences and humanities are often refreshed by a return to the original sources, the hard sciences aren't.

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  6. Scott F

    I think the best way to address this question is to first lay out what exactly could be meant by "secular." So far as I can tell, the phrase "secular moral theory" can head off in two directions. If it's simply supposed to be any sort of ethics where our code of conduct is not decreed by superior entities of some kind – or one in which the status of its origin is simply irrelevant – then it would be a very old tradition indeed. Aristotle, for example, brackets the question: eudaimonia is what it is regardless of whether or not the gods simply dropped it on us. (NE I.9)

    On the other hand, if "secular moral theory" is any ethics which proceeds without ANY reference to divine entities, then you'd have to look for a much more recent starting date. Keeping to Aristotle, you find gods just about everywhere in the NE; I'd even say that it's impossible to understand the text without considering the hoi theoi. NE I.7: "Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action." However, the measure of eudaimonia is the gods themselves. NE I.12: "What we do to the gods and the most godlike of men is to call them blessed and happy." NE X.8: "We assume the gods to be above all other beings blessed and happy." And "the activity of God, which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be contemplative; and of human activities, therefore, that which is most akin to this must be most of the nature of happiness." Thus, "[the philosopher] is the dearest to the gods. And he who is that will presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy." Whatever else one may say about this argument, it is certainly based in a certain concept of what ho theos is. On Aristotle's account, I don't think you could understand human action without such a concept. Thus, he must certainly lack any "secular moral theory" in the sense of a complete divorce from the concept of divinity, and I think you can plausibly say the same of everyone up to and including Hegel (see, for example, Philosophy of Right par. 270). In that case, such an ethics would indeed be fairly young.

    I'll leave it to you to decide just what the phrase means. As for the given question of whether the (presumptive) youth of this field makes it more promising, I honestly can't see why youth or age would matter all that much. In principle at least, I think we can still learn from a Plato just as well as from a Parfit or a Davidson. The credentials for a philosophy are just whether or not it has anything to say, whether it actually gives us any insights. The argument that a position or a set of positions is more promising because it is new (or, in contrast, because it is long-established) thus seems to me a kind of association fallacy.

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  7. Bill Edmundson

    Stipulate that a theory is a secular theory just in case divinity doesn't come into its details. With the important exception of biology, the natural sciences generally have been secular in that sense at least since Laplace and Kant, and arguably since Bacon. Moral theory in general hasn't been secular in that sense for nearly as long, although many secular moral theories have been around (e.g. Hume's). Moral theory is generally secular today, in that even theologically inspired moral theorizing recognizes it must take care to keep divinity out of its details (typically by offering secularized versions of argumentation to supplement any that require theological assumptions).
    When did moral theory become generally secular? That's not easy to say. Anglophone moral philosophy was not secularized until the influence of Henry Sidgwick had displaced the influence of William Paley. That was under way during the latter half of the 19th century, and it was accelerated by the influence of Darwin. The transition was almost complete by 1906, when the force of the San Francisco earthquake pitched the statute of Louis Agassiz from the frieze of the Zoology Building at Stanford, causing it to stick javelin-like into the pavement below. Agassiz was an accomplished field zoologist but, as a theorist, an unyielding anti-Darwininan. David Starr Jordan, Stanford president and intellectual wunderkind, was widely said to have quipped that he preferred Agassiz in the concrete to Agassiz in the abstract. That this apocryphal version of another man's quip, running in the opposite direction, should have been the one to go into circulation is evidence that among biologists the "abstract" hypothesis of species as special creations (read: divine creations) had lost out to the evolutionary account.
    Moral theory could become generally secular only after the natural sciences of life agreed that the coming-to-be and the species-nature of humankind –humankind being the subject of moral theorizing– could be explained without invoking a divine creator. (The Vatican itself today takes the position that speciation by natural selection is consistent with Catholic teaching.) By this account, secular natural science has had at least a century-long head start over secular moral theory. Unlike moral philosophy, natural science is not necessarily centered on questions about the nature of homo sapiens (and similarly rational beings). Progress in moral theory generally has had to wait on the resolution of a question of natural science that was not one that progress in the natural sciences had to wait on.

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  8. Eric Winsberg

    I don't have much to say about moral theory, but there are two things worth noting about physics. First, the fact that there is some sense in which it is true that the typical "Introduction to Physics" class starts with Newton does not mean that modern physics only traces its intellectual roots back to Newton. The fact that we start with Newton has nothing to do with how far back its intellectual roots stretch. It has to do with the fact that Newton's theory is one of the oldest "Emeritus Theories" in physics–theories which we no longer hold to be true but that still have highly accurate domains of applicability (and also pedagogical value). Newton himself noted that he stood on the shoulders of giants; his achievements were only possible because of the long history (going back at least to Archimedes and Ptolemy if not Aristotle) of past work. The fact that we start ethics classes with Aristotle (I guess) is because there are things Aristotle says about ethics which are still considered candidate theories (whereas little of what he says about physics counts as such).

    Second, it is not clear what counts as "secular physics". I doubt Newton would have described his work as such. For example, Newton and Clark clearly used theological premises in their arguments with Leibniz about the nature of space. My guess, if I had to make one, is that the "secularity" of physics has ebbed and flowed through history in concert with the secularity of Moral Theory. (It is true, of course, that we can reconstruct Newtonian theory in a completely secular form today, but so can we do with Aristotle's Moral theory (I guess), despite the fact, as Scott F points out, that it is full of reference to divine entities.)

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  9. Brian Leiter

    I suspect Bill's definition of "secular" moral theory makes it too easy to shorten its history. Secular moral philosophers regularly teach–and not just for antiquarian reasons–lots of pre-19th-century philosophers. Aristotle and Kant are very much part of the canon of secular moral theory, whatever their self-understandings may have been.

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  10. Justin Clarke-Doane

    If one regards ethics as an a priori discipline, then the proper comparison is between ethics and intuitively a priori sciences with respect to which realism is plausible, such as pure mathematics.

    Distinguish two kinds of agreement. First, there is agreement over what follows from what. Second, there is agreement over what is (non-logically) true. There appears to be a great deal of agreement, in the first sense of “agreement”, in pure mathematics. Moreover, such agreement appears to have been cumulative. The body of claims about what mathematical propositions follow from what that commands consensus appears to have grown dramatically. However, it is much less clear that there is a great deal of agreement, whether cumulative or not, in the second sense of “agreement”.

    Agreement in the first sense is logical, not mathematical. Perhaps, then, pure logic is the a priori science with respect to which ethics should be compared. However, among experts with respect to pure logic itself, it is, again, very unclear that there is a great deal of agreement, whether cumulative or not.

    Whether there is a great deal of agreement in the first sense of “agreement” in ethics is hard to judge. It is also uninteresting. By regimenting ethical theories in formal languages we could prove theorems and largely settle, to the satisfaction of ethicists (as opposed to logicians), the question of what ethical propositions follow from what, as we have largely settled, to the satisfaction of pure mathematicians (as opposed to logicians) the question of what mathematical propositions follow from what.

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  11. Dwight Furrow

    I am not convinced the definition of "secular moral theory" in Bill's comment is too narrow.

    The fact that we now teach Aristotle, Hume, etc. in an Intro to Ethics course is not entirely relevant. The relevant question is whether there was a long tradition of secular moral theory that has sifted through evidence and conceptual frameworks (as physics has done) such that a legitimate consensus has formed around some settled beliefs.

    Since prior to roughly the 1950's Aristotle and Hume were not really part of the canon, secular ethics was really utilitarianism plus some ruminations about meta-ethics responding to attacks by positivists.

    That is a rather thin tradition.

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  12. ade

    …i have to disagree with you Brian about the intro to physics curriculum. when i took intro to physics, we started with Archimedes. while Archimedes is not Aristotle, he is close enough in time period to cast doubt on your notion that physics doesn't start with the ancients; it does.

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  13. Jeremy Pierce

    I think a case can be made that Aristotle's theory is secular. He does appeal to the prime mover to explain the teleology that all things tend toward. The lesser gods imitate the prime mover, and all teleology on earth imitates them. But there's certainly no religion going on in this. It's a philosophical argument, just as Thomas Aquinas' arguments are philosophical rather than religious. The difference is that Aquinas supplements his philosophical arguments with a number of views that he fully admits he gets from special revelation (not that he bases his arguments for God on them but that he accepts further views like the Trinity on that basis), whereas Aristotle does no such thing. I do think some of these affect Aquinas' ethics, even if he seeks to develop his view without appeal to them. Aristotle's picture doesn't borrow in any way I know of from Greek religion.

    But I think what Parfit, Brink, and company are thinking of is appeal to a divine being as an explanation for ethical truths. Aristotle does in fact do that, even if you don't see him doing it in his explicitly ethical works. His ethics appeals to his teleology, which he does eventually trace back to the prime mover's perfection. In that respect, his ground of ethics isn't all that different from that of Thomas Aquinas. So he's not secular by that measure.

    But if Aristotle doesn't count as secular, surely Epicurean ethics does (and I would argue that Skeptical and Cynical views have no religious component). These figures were only the next generation. Epicurus does accept the existence of gods, because of course there must be something that explains what we see in the skies, and they had no contemporary theories for that, but he doesn't connect his ethics with them. If they're worthy of being called gods, they would be good Epicureans too, and they'd care about their own happiness, not ours, so there's no reason to fear them or to try to appease them. But the foundation of ethics has nothing to do with them, even if it turns out to be true (contingently) that there are beings called gods that are worth imitating. This ethical view is secular in its intrinsic structure. So the claim is just plain false.

    Parfit, Brink, and company are correct about one thing, though. Secular ethics didn't have much support in European philosophy during most of the Middle Ages. It was alive and well during Augustine's time, but it had almost disappeared by the time Thomas Aquinas was writing. I don't think there were very many notable figures I would count as developing a secular ethical view until Thomas Hobbes (although I'm sure there are a number I'm just unaware of or not thinking of at the moment).

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  14. J. Edward Hackett

    "Secular" moral theory is usually a term used to designate that the ground of ethics is built on a concept wholly other than the divine. Historic influences as modern ethics goes usually add a Neo to their particular theoretic starting point. Virtue ethicists that are Neo-Aristotelian should be represented here as not beholden to everything that Aristotle said or claimed. The same goes for Neo-Kantians like Korsgaard. The operative concept might be autonomy or rationality. We could have a naturalistic account of eudaimonia (perhaps). The point is that the popular opinion of a majority Americans might think that religion is the ground of morality, but clearly when we teach ethics from the philosophical point of view, there is more going on in ethical reasoning than religion allows.

    It also should be noted that ethical reasoning is evaluative, and the sexy question of ethics are metaethical. Metaethical questions are largely descriptive. In fact, I know some ethicists that proceed on the assumption that they should just do metaethics and the rest of normative theory will just fall in line. I'm not too sure this approach is too common, but it seems that more Anglo-American philosophers seem to go this way. Part of the problem is in the very idea of progress, as some have noted here already. It bears repeating.

    There is a lot of reasoning to think that we are progressing in some disciplines. This progress is a replacement or modification of a previous held idea/hypothesis/theory. The causes are many, a new experiment, a new assumption and maybe a better innovation in our ability to measure. I'm not saying these are the only ways in which progress would be measured; I'm only committing myself to the fact that the natural sciences do progress–some piecemeal and others in huge leaps.

    However, we should keep in mind what Aristotle said about ethical matters. We should only demand the level of precision a phenomena can show. I think the fact that some are obsessed with the descriptive end of metaethics might be conflating the precision of the natural sciences into ethical matters. Should ethics be thought of as an independent science in its own right? Should ethics be committed to the level of precision we find largely in the natural sciences?

    I have no answer really. I think we haven't even agreed on the phenomenology involved in moral experience, let alone which ontology should drive metaethics and normative ethics. I'm optimistic that philosophers can offer moral wisdom, but full-blown theoretical agreement, I just can't say.

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  15. Stephen Nayak-Young

    Let's grant that progress in secular moral theory is harder to discern than progress in the natural sciences. Is this a special problem for *moral* philosophy?

    Parfit's explanation/excuse for ethics' lack of progress might not strike everyone as very persuasive, but at least it's something. What's epistemology's excuse? How about you, metaphysics? We don't build better bridges or airplanes out of any of the other branches of philosophy, either …

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  16. Eric Schwitzgebel

    The early Confucian tradition is pretty secular, despite the fact that it is often taught in Religious Studies departments. In the far East, there's a very long, mostly continuous tradition of attention to the early Confucians, though the degree to which the medieval and modern Confucian traditions are secular, or have secular sub-traditions, is disputable and depends on what exactly counts as "secular".

    In defense of ethics, we haven't made much progress on consciousness either, though there are claims about consciousness that date back to antiquity (e.g., Aristotle's claim that all thought is imagistic); and despite some denials it seems clear that there are facts of the matter about consciousness. Some topics are just hard!

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  17. Avi Craimer

    I think the focus on the question of the secularism vs religiosity of recent moral theory misses the crucial issue. Parfit's optimism about progress in contemporary moral theory is not underwritten by the mere fact that recent moral theory has become largely independent of religious content. Rather, Parfit's hope for the future of moral theory rests on what he sees as an important historical shift towards a certain style of normative moral theorizing which really does look very different from the kind of moral philosophy we see before the late 20th century. I would characterize this new kind of moral theory not so much in terms of secularism, but in terms of a shift towards a new methodology. It is difficult to say exactly what makes up this new methodology but some of its broad features are as follows: 1) Less appeal to the self-evidence of moral principles. More reliance on providing evidence for moral principles through careful consideration of our judgments about concrete situations in which a moral decision must be made. 2) A willingness to tolerate greater complexity in the content of moral theories. For example, recent theories can have plurality of fundamental principles which interact in extremely complicated ways. Each principle in a theory can also be more internally complex, for example by relating a host of thick moral terms in addition to rightness, goodness, and non-moral facts. 3) A separation of metaethics from moral theory. Although the mid-20th Century was rife with attempts to derive normative conclusions from metaethical arguments, Parfit clearly eschews this approach. His comments about the newly independent research program in normative ethics underscore the Rawls-led movement towards dealing with substantive moral questions without trying first to solve the problems of metaethics.

    There are many ways in which these three features of late 20th moral theory give reason for optimism about the future of the field. These developments are in many ways similar to the ways that other specialized fields have emerged out of traditional philosophical debates. Feature (1), the turn towards case-based theorizing and a methodology broadly like reflective equilibrium, gives moral theorists something akin to (but not exactly the same as) empirical data in the sciences. Feature (2) allows a much greater range of moral options to be considered, and allows moral theory to capture more of the nuanced moral texture of real life. Finally, feature (3) is quite parallel to the way that the natural and social sciences largely separate themselves from metaphysical worries. Physicists, for example, don't spend much time worrying about solutions to current problems in the philosophy of time and psychologists manage to get on just fine without waiting for solutions to problems in the philosophy of mind. So too, I think Parfit's optimism for recent moral theory stems from the fact that from the 1970s onward, moral theory finally seemed to be escaping from the philosophical wheel-spinning of moral metaphysics and concerning itself instead with the hard and messy work of solving moral problems.

    It is obviously still an open question of whether Parfit's optimism about this new methodology will be vindicated by recognizable progress in the field. However, signs of this progress are already afoot. Recent developments in normative moral theory have already had a profound impact on dominant thinking in certain areas of law, medical ethics, environmental ethics and political philosophy. The best is still to come.

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  18. George Stamets

    It seems to me that whether a particular moral system is 'secular' or not should be determined by a look at the way it attempts to justify its content. If this justification as given can be divorced from any possible theological content without dissolving itself (the justification), then the system should be seen as 'secular'.

    So, if some thinker at some moment in history gives us a moral system that justifies itself via reason in one way or another, then states that this specific faculty of reason has been given to us by God, or by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it would count in my book as a secular moral system. What's important is that this faculty cited (that which justifies) exists (or doesn't exist), not where it allegedly came from.

    On the other hand, claiming that moral commandments come directly from God/FSM obviously involves a justification for which the element of divinity cannot be removed.

    Too simple, maybe?

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  19. Lee

    Surely more professional person-hours have been devoted to theorizing in the physical sciences than in secular morality. (Think of war research.) And that's the relevant measure if you'd like to indict a field for not settling on a consensus by now.

    No need to settle whether we've gone around the sun more times since one field or the other began.

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  20. Mark Engleson

    It is too strict to suggest that an ethical theory is secular only if contains no references to divine entities. The the term "God's eye view" refers to a divine entity. Atheists may make use of "God" when writing not because of any ontological commitment, but rather because we write in the context of a culture in which that term signifies commonly supposed to have certain characteristics, such as omniscience (hence, "God's eye view.")

    I want to take Bill Edmundson's definitional comment: "'Secular' moral theory is usually a term used to designate that the ground of ethics is built on a concept wholly other than the divine." By that standard, I think Aristotle and Kant are secular moral theorists. Aristotle's moral theory is built on the concept of eudaimonia. I don't see how the particular quotations Scott F chose establishes that the gods are the measure of eudaimonia. The particular quotations from Aristotle demonstrate that he believed that the gods were the happiest of beings, not that they were the measure of happiness. Aristotle's claim that the philosopher is the happiest is of the form that x and y have z in common (x being the philosopher, y being God/the gods, and z being contemplation).

    Kant's own self-understanding seems to place him in the tradition of secular moral philosophy. Roger Sullivan puts this well in his Intro to the Gregor trans. of the Metaph. of Morals: "Moral laws are justified by our own reason in a way that does not depend on the existence or nonexistence of God." (xxvi)
    Many of the references to the divine in Kant's moral and political philosophy can be read in the way of my example of "God's eye view," as conceptual devices.

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  21. James K.

    Secular moral theory will always be chaotic because it is a sad byproduct of the modern technological spirit. God has been vanquished from the academy and, with Him, all truly macrocosmic goals for humanity. People shy away from religion because it is wreathed in myth and miracle, but fail to realize the deeply constructive metaphors it can provide. We are left in a world of confusion, in which the free-floating ego is the exalting power, meaning is relative and morality is applied only situationally.

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  22. jason p

    I think the case can be made if young is understood as "young and immature" rather than as "young vs. old". As rich and lengthy the history of secular ethical theory might be, nevertheless its disputes across the ages–unsettled as they are–remain vibrantly alive. And as unsettled as they are, they may well remain so.

    Biology, on the other hand, is rich with theories whose explanatory power possesses considerable purchase, something akin to the theories of physics. As vital as newton's theories were, nevertheless they have been superceded by more powerful theories that have subsumed his.

    As to its optimism–I don't believe youth necessarily implies optimism. But perhaps historically youth was tied to optimism-i.e. "the sunny optimism of youth". And who knows? Nietzsche's moral theory seems to be gaining purchase…..

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  23. Dwight Furrow

    Mark Engleson writes:

    I want to take Bill Edmundson's definitional comment: "'Secular' moral theory is usually a term used to designate that the ground of ethics is built on a concept wholly other than the divine." By that standard, I think Aristotle and Kant are secular moral theorists.

    I agree with regard to Aristotle. I am not convinced with regard to Kant.

    Even though Kant explicitly denies his moral theory rests on the existence of God, his notion of a "pure will" unencumbered by phenomena sounds suspiciously divine-like.

    God is smuggled in the back door.

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  24. Robert Hockett

    If I'm not mistaken, Grotius as early as the early-mid-17th century was explicit that his own brand of 'natural law' moral theorizing would hold good even in the absence of a deity as then traditionally conceived by Europeans. Wasn't this the import of his then-notorious 'Etiamsi daremus non esse Deum' observation? So far as I can tell, moreover — though I hasten to add that I am no expert — nothing in G's moral account gave the lie to the so-called 'Daremus.' If this suffices to render a moral theory 'secular,' then it would seem that we've had 'secular moral theory' in 'the West' for nearly 400 years now at least, even bracketing 'the Greeks.' I think Parfit's proffered reason for optimism singularly implausible.

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  25. Robert Hockett

    PS: It seems doubtful that many would characterize the Utilitarian tradition, even from its beginnings, as anything other than 'secular.' Conservatively dating that back, say, to the early 19th century (of course it actually goes back further), and recalling that most who worked and wrote in the natural sciences at that time professed to be deist if not full-on theist in orientation, one wonders all the more at what Parfit could mean. Has physical theory been 'secular' any longer than has moral theory, if Hume's, Smith's, and Bentham's moralities are no less severable from what ever theistic or deistic beliefs their authors harbored than is Newtonian physics from Newton's deism or theism?

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  26. Matt Lister

    PS: It seems doubtful that many would characterize the Utilitarian tradition, even from its beginnings, as anything other than 'secular.'

    This, at least, isn't quite so clear. Paley, mentioned by Bill Edmundson above, was one of the most important people for popularizing and making important utilitarianism, and his was a distinctly theological version. Similarly, John Austin, the legal theorist and colleague of Bentham, held that the reason utilitarianism is the right moral theory is because God wants his creations to be happy, and without this reason, it would not be the right moral theory. I don't think that Utilitarianism is necessarily dependent on theological foundations, but many early versions of it, including many of the most influential early versions, relied on them quite heavily.

    That said, it does seem like there is a tradition of "secular" moral philosophy in the relevant sense that's fairly old, if not always unbroken. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Epicurus so far, as he had a distinctly materialistic moral philosophy, and the belief that his view strictly implied atheism seems to be one reason it fell out of favor for a long period and caused much distress when it came back during the renaissance.

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  27. Scott F

    Mark – apologies if my first passages weren't clear, but let me throw a couple more at you. Now, I certainly wouldn't oppose your reading as an attempt to "secularize" Aristotle – one could, presumably, find something else to measure happiness with, and simply cross out all the passages involving hoi theoi – but I don't at all think it was Aristotle's own position. In the NE, he seems fairly hellbent on the idea that human eudaimonia and virtue in general are "divine" and "godlike." Taking him at his word, it isn't (as you argue) that gods and the philosophers simply have something in common (that is, happiness), but rather that eudaimonia itself is fundamentally divine. Book X in particular hammers on this point several times. For example, X.7:

    "If happiness is activity (energeia) in accordance with virtue (arete), it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing in us. Whether it be reason (nous) or something else that is this element which is thought to be our natural ruler and guide, and to take thought of things noble and divine, whether it be itself also divine (theion) or only the most divine element in us, the activity of this in accordance with its proper virtue will be perfect happiness (teleia eudaimonia)."

    This activity – which is, of course, contemplation – must be something divine, or at least it is the part of us closest to that status (the part most godlike). So "it is not in so far as he is man that he will live [happily], but in so far as something divine is present in him." The idea simply seems to be: the more happy, the more divine, and vice versa. I suppose you could then argue that this is still just a situation of x and y having z in common, but I don't know if that's as easy to do with "divinity" as with "happiness." Anyways, that's about as close to a smoking gun as I've got.

    On another topic now. I said above, rather too hastily, that if by "secular moral theory" one meant an ethics that completely removed any concept of the divine from the picture altogether (including as an "ideal"), then one would have to look for a starting point somewhere after Hegel. It seems to me that Hume and the English tradition are the "tough case" for this proposition. They require, I think, much more work than folks like Kant, for whom the divine is still "given" within the picture even if not as actual entity (Kant, OP: "There is a God in the soul of man. The question is whether he is also in nature."). So, is there also a god in Hume's moral theory? I think the place to put the debate would be on the status of the third person, the neutral spectator. This is the figure, standing outside the actual moral situation, whose feeling of moral approval or condemnation is supposed to tell us whether or not the acting agent was virtuous. I'm not completely convinced of this, but I can't shake the sense that such a spectator works very much on the model of the divine judge – in which case Hume would end up in much the same boat as Kant. Both would have to use something like a divine ideal to get their theories off the ground.

    The bullet to bite here, of course, would be that any moral theory using strongly idealized concepts (the prototypical moral agent, the completely neutral spectator, the absolutely happy being) is openly or otherwise bringing hoi theoi into the picture. That may be to "theologize" more of the field than many would be happy with. And that, I think, is the worry of many of the good comments above (especially, again, Mark's) to the effect that it's "too strict to suggest that an ethical theory is secular only if contains no references to divine entities." This is fair enough, but I think it's also important to precisely nail down our concepts. I don't have a horse in the race as to what the word "secular" should mean (as I've implied); it could be said in a manifold of ways. As I see it, though, it shouldn't just be about whether the words "god" or "divine" show up, which is not philosophically important (one could "secularize" any theorist quite easily if that were the only criterion). The more important issue is rather the use or disuse of certain concepts, the "justification of content" as George says (in a slightly different way than I mean). Perhaps it would be more useful to talk of anthroponomous and theonomous moral theories, or ideal-laden and idealless theories, rather than secular or nonsecular ones.

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  28. Blinn Combs

    This is really perplexing, in very instructive ways. Obviously, the "newness" of a field of research is no guarantor of its future success. But what are we meant to include in either of the two categories being contrasted? If Avi is right, we should exclude anything prior to the 1970's, and so the claim has little or nothing to do with the broader project of ethical naturalism, per se. If that's right, the claim simply sounds naive. (I haven't read enough Parfitt to know wether or not Avi's correct.)

    Absent further specification, it looks like the terms "theoretical" and "systematic" are simply being used as honorifics for the purpose of indirect self-praise. (Might I suggest "praise by association"?)

    I'm curious, though, about whether other readers get the sense that recent secular moral philosophers have reached some sort of broad consensus about what sorts of things are to count as "problems," the theortical frameworks in which those problems are most fruitfully discussed, and a shared set of assumptions about the correct methods of going about solving further problems that arise through the advance of the paradigm?

    My sense (which is admittedly vague; ethics isn't my AOS) is more that people tend to study and produce work in whatever approaches are most touted and/or available at their respective graduate departments, and that those approaches are often substantively different, and sometimes mutually contemptuous. Some of that is probably just the narcissism of minor differences, but surely not all. As ever, I'd appreciate informed rejoinders.

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  29. Derek Bowman

    To those who don't see the connection between 'newness' and optimism, I think the dialectic is this:

    Some philosophers have argued that the dramatic lack of consensus in philosophical ethics indicates bad news for that enterprise on certain traditional conceptions. Either it shows that the methods are not very reliable, or perhaps it supports some form of anti-realism about ethics in which questions of reliability are misplaced.

    It is against this background, I take it, that Parfit, et al are saying: Take heart – we've only seriously been at this a short while, so the lack of progress/consensus is a symptom of youth, not of unreliability or anti-realism.

    Given that, I doubt that the relevant distinction is going to be between approaches to ethics that posit or refer to divine entities. Rather, it has to be a question of method. As others have pointed out above, Newton's works contained explicit references to a divine being. Yet Newton is clearly in the relevant sense a part of the same broad theoretical project as modern 'secular' physics. I suspect (not having read much Newton firsthand) the connection is broadly methodological. While there was a role for God is his theories, they did not rest in any important way on the authority of religious texts or traditions or on supposed divine revelation. Thus their essential parts could be easily extrapolated in ways compatible with any number of religious and non-religious worldviews. On this metric, it's likely that Aristotle and Kant, and many others besides, would be 'secular' in the relevant sense.

    Also, given my understanding of the dialectic, Lee is probably right that something like 'professional person-hours' might be a more interesting metric than 'age.'

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  30. Andy Lamey

    Avi Craimer hits the nail on the head, especially regarding the separation of metaethics from moral theory. When you look at how people actually go about making substantive moral arguments, what is noticeable is how similar their "methodologies" usually are, not how different. Brian Barry has a nice discussion of this in Theories of Justice (1989), in the chapter "Some Questions of Method":

    "We all know how to engage in moral arguments, even if we would be flummoxed by being asked whether or not we subscribe to moral realism, objectivism, subjectivism, prescriptivism, or what have you. It is, moreover, noticeable how little difference is made by people's commitments to such general positions about the nature of morality when it comes down to arguing about some concrete moral question (I refer here throughout to arguments based on secular rather that theological considerations). Thus, everyone proposes general principles, derives more specific principles from them, tests them by examples, argues from case to case by analogy, and so on.

    "The accounts of what is going on here will differ, of course. One person will claim to be getting in touch with a moral reality that inheres in the nature of things; another will say that all there is to do is to attempt to bring our various judgements into a coherent whole. But these rival accounts do not apparently have distinctive implications for the practice of moral argumentation" (p. 258).

    I might add one or two further qualification beyond Barry's religious exception, but on the whole I find his description accurate. There are disagreements in anglo-American moral theory, but genuinely methodological disagreements are rare.

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  31. Anonymous

    Is there an implicit suggestion here that "disagreement about ethical matters" somehow indicates a lack of "systematic theoretical progress on the problems"? As far as I can see, the question whether there has been systematic theoretical progress on ethical issue X and the question whether there has been agreement among professional ethicists on issue X are independent of each other. If there is a connection, it would be interesting to see it explored in greater detail.

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  32. Avi Craimer

    When considering whether moral theory has or could achieve consensus in answering to ethical problems three things are worth noting. First, when measuring consensus in any academic field the relevant agreement in opinion is agreement among trained researchers in that field. For example, when we claim that there is a high degree of consensus about the theory of evolution or the theory of human caused climate-change, the relevant class of opinion is that of biologists and climate scientists respectively. For, in fact, there is very little consensus on these issues if we look at the opinions of the American population as a whole. Often however when critics of moral theory appeal to the lack of consensus about moral issues, they implicitly or explicitly advert to the lack of consensus within society as a whole. Now, of course, ethics cannot ignore entirely the question of folk moral opinion since this opinion itself can have moral relevance, but the mere existence of widely and intractably divergent opinion about moral matters within society more broadly does necessarily undermine academic consensus about moral theory.

    This first observation leads us to a second point about consensus. Consensus is not unanimity. Near total consensus within a research discipline is usually a sign of dogmatism rather than an indication of epistemic merit. Hence, the success of moral theory does not turn on eliminating all dissent within the ethics research community. Rather what we should expect to see is a healthy disagreement coupled with large overlapping patches of agreement. The most important kind of consensus for sustaining a flourishing research program is, as Andy Lamey notes, agreement about how to work towards resolving disagreements.

    The third point about measuring research consensus is that consensus normally emerges around mid-level generalizations rather than highly abstract theoretical constructs. For example, particle physics today has a high degree of consensus if one considers that almost all physicists accept the basic empirical claims of relativity and quantum field theory. Yet, if we look at abstract theoretical constructs in particle theory, there appears to be very little consensus. String theory alone contains uncountably many possible physical theories with no obvious way to decide between them. It's often said (mostly by philosophers who aren't themselves moral theorists) that moral philosophy is divided into isolated camps along theoretical lines like utilitarianism, Kantianism, virtue ethics, contractualism, etc. While it is true that different moral theorists favor different abstract theoretical starting points, a close examination shows that the morally substantive differences between the theoretical orientations have eroded over time.

    Consequentialists today try to incorporate most of the traditionally deontological and contractualist moral claims within a consequentialist framework. For example, John Broome's abstract consequentialism incorporates agent-relative value (and possibly even time-relative value). Liam Murphy's consequentialism incorporates a contractualism-like concern for fairness in the distribution of burdens. Similarly, few if any contemporary Kantians uphold those aspects of Kant's theory that were always least tenable, such as absolute unconditional duties not to lie, kill, break a promise, etc. Further, and perhaps most importantly, all manner of hybrid theories have emerged which freely combines elements from the traditional theoretical orientations. Hybrid theories are perhaps now dominant in the contemporary literature. In other words, when we focus on the mid-level substantive moral claims that a theory endorses, we find an increasing amount of consensus that spans the differences between theoretical frameworks.

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  33. Brian Leiter

    Avi Craimer makes a number of interesting and useful points in this and his earlier comments. A few points by way of reply and as an invitation to further discussion:

    (1) In principle, we ought to focus on consensus among "trained researchers," though the idea that there is such a thing as "trained researchers" in moral theory may already beg the question against the skeptic. As Robert Cummins has noted with respect to other intuition-dependent areas of philosophy, one can sometimes have the impression that "training" consists in excluding those who don't profess the "correct" intuitions, so that the existence of consensus among a group whose membership is filtered for requiste agreement on core intuitions isn't highly probative of the epistemic standing of its results.

    (2) But putting the worry in (1) to the side, it seems to me that even among "trained researchers" there is an embarrassing lack of agreement on foundatinoal principles among moral philosophers: has there been any progress made in 200+ years on whether the criterion of right action is the consequences the action brings about or the reasons for which the action is performed? As I've discussed elsewhere (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1315061), intractability of foundational disagreements and the increasing insularity of discussion within theoretical paradigms seems to be the most striking characteristic of moral theory (not only moral theory–there are other branches of philosophy that I suspect are similarly devoid of actual cognitive content, but I'll keep the focus here on ethics).

    (3) Mr. Craimer suggests, though, that there is a high level of mid-level agreement in moral theory. (Bracket the question whether the situation is better or worse in physics–no one denies there is disagreement over issues in physics, but focusing on 'string theory' surely understates the agreement on foundational issues in many branches of physics.) But what kind of 'agreement' is it that actually belies disagreement about foundational principles? Why isn't the latter more relevant?

    (4) I am curious what others think about the claim about the prevalence of hybrid theories (granting that they are really hybrid, and not simply 'ad hoc').

    (5) Finally, with respect to Andy Lamey's observations: Brian Barry may be right that first-order moral argument proceeds according to familiar patterns of deductive reasoning regardless of one's metaethics, but this is rather far from showing there is a 'methodology' to moral argument on which everyone agrees.

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  34. Alastair Norcross

    Truly secular ethics is very young, but it has made some progress, and promises much more. Let me explain. As Avi Cramer said in an earlier post, the prevalent methodology of moral inquiry has been some version of reflective equilibrium that gives a prominent role to intuitions about fairly concretely described hypothetical cases. The cases are constructed with an eye to eliciting near unanimous agreement, in order to argue for a particular moral theory. Proponents of different theories construct different cases, of course. The result is that there is no remotely plausible or manageable theory that generates the results supported by the majority of intuitions. If we want to regard our case-based intuitions as veridical, we either get a ptolemaic monstrosity like Frances Kamm's "Intricate Ethics", or the complete abdication from serious moral thinking that is somewhat fashionable as "particularism".

    The problem, of course, lies in the nature of the intuitions that figure so prominently in this methodology. Even those of us who long ago gave up on religion as a source of truth have intuitions that have been shaped by our surroundings. Our families and our cultures play a large role in shaping our moral intuitions. Pretty much all of us (moral theorists, that is) grew up in, and continue to live in, cultures heavily influenced by religious traditions. Western European countries and the US, for example, no matter how secular they may claim to be, are still rife with Christian notions of sexual morality, dating back at least to the pernicious influence of Augustine. Such religious influences compete with more enlightened ones to shape our intuitive responses to cases and principles. Hence the futility of trying to systematize such responses.

    This isn't to say that all our intuitions about hypothetical cases are at least partly shaped by religious influences. But many, perhaps most, are, and it's not easy to tell which ones might not be. Similarly, many of our intuitions about ethical principles are also so influenced, though it may be easier to tell which ones. While we continue to rely heavily (or even moderately) on religiously influenced intuitions we are not doing truly secular ethics. Truly secular ethics is probably not even an infant yet. Perhaps a second trimester fetus.

    So much for the youth of secular ethics. Where's the progress? That consists in the growing recognition of the unreliable nature of many of our moral intuitions. The persuasive arguments of theorists such as the Peters Singer and Unger (and of all of us who have done informal experiments with hypothetical cases in our classes) have recently been supplemented by experimental work in neuroscience involving fMRI scans. While there's still plenty of disagreement about what such experimental work shows, it definitely adds to the growing case undermining the reliability of a lot of moral intuitions. It's certainly some progress to reveal the unreliability of the intuitions on which much moral theorizing is built. Much greater progress will occur if we improve our methodology, perhaps by identifying types of intuitions that are reliable (or at least that we don't know are unreliable). I have high hopes that this will soon occur, and that when it does, secular ethics will finally arrive, mewling and puking, but cute as a button.

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  35. Blinn Combs

    I don't see the relation between Barry's (via Lamey) remarks and Kraimer's. Barry seems to mean "everybody" quite generally; Kraimer to be discussing a very narrow range of relatively recent researchers.

    I find comments like Barry's rather astonishing. On the one hand, there's the attempt to smuggle in consensus on the cheap. For the blandness of the committments, try substituting "music" or "politics" for "ethics," and check whether the statements lose any substance.

    On the other hand, could anybody who has ever taught an introductory ethics class seriously maintain that students come prepared to argue about (or even conceive) moral issues in the ways described? That they (sometimes) *leave* doing so is a separate issue, and whether they come back for more is likely just as often a measure of their success at picking up the vaunted methods. And this, even in light of the selection bias introduced by the fact that people who are drawn to take ethics courses will tend to harbor at least some interest in arguing about ethics.

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  36. Justin Clarke-Doane

    If I may break the rules and post again, I’d like to attempt to elaborate on concern (5).

    Among parties that might deserve the title “expert” in any area (except logic!) many broadly methodological principles will generally be agreed upon. For instance, in any area (save logic) experts will agree that, other things being equal, consistent theories are better than inconsistent ones. They will also agree that, other things being equal, unifying theories are better than disjoint ones. The observation that “moral experts” (if there are any) agree to such methodological principles as these would be interesting only if it suggested that, if followed rigorously, such principles would lead to substantial convergence. However, in the case of ethics, it is doubtful that they would.

    The reason is straightforward. The “data” to which parties respond in ethics is not shared in the sense in which the “data” to which parties respond in empirical science is shared. We test our empirical scientific theories against observations, often in very direct ways.
    Of course, there is not perfect agreement as to what is observationally evident. Observation is theory laden. Also, some people have impaired perceptual capabilities. But it would be crazy to claim that paradigmatic empirical scientific disagreements are primarily attributable to disagreements over what is observationally evident.

    By contrast, it seems eminently plausible to claim that paradigmatic ethical disagreements are primarily attributable to disagreements over what is intuitionally evident. Save borderline terminological principles, apparently reasonable people seem to be all over the map with respect to what ethical principles are intuitively evident.

    What is more – and this is crucial — there seems to be no reason to suspect that such disagreements could, in general, be eliminated in a reasonable way. We could always manipulate people. But there does not seem to be any more reason to think that, in general, people could be rationally persuaded to agree with respect to paradigmatic ethical principles than there does to think that, in general, people could be rationally persuaded to agree to paradigmatic aesthetic ones.

    Of course, this leaves open the significance of such interminable, rationally irresolvable, disagreement. My own view is that the situation in ethics is more general than is commonly recognized, so it may be problematic to argue from it to ethical antirealism.

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  37. Josh Shepherd

    I wanted to weigh in – as someone with particularist sympathies, no less – in order to agree and disagree with Alastair Norcross. I agree with his comments concerning the youth of secular moral theory. While there are moments of what we could call secular moral theory which are quite old, the kind of things which would allow a secular moral theory to flourish are still, as Norcross says, in their infancy. Among these would be, I think, an actually secular society – one where, say, the governor of a state couldn't get away with saying 'Well, David didn't resign when he cheated with Bathsheba, so why should I?' – and a group of philosophers committed to exploring, from a secular stance, the nature of (including a plausible biological story concerning) our moral intuitions, the structure of the moral domain, the assumptions which underly our deepest disagreements, and so on. We don't have the former, and I don't know the field enough to know if the latter exists in sufficient number.

    To pick a small bone, regarding moral progress: I don't know what Prof. Norcross meant by 'particularism' in scare quotes – there are many different types of particularism – but one area of recent moral progress that might be cited, I think, is the debate between particularists and generalists regarding the structure of the moral domain and how we might better navigate it (admittedly this debate, like most in moral theory, is not populated entirely by those longing for a secular moral theory). Some good work has been happening there related to questions concerning the role of moral discourse, as well as the place of moral generalizations for moral knowledge, judgment, and expertise – and not all of it from those who find particularism daft.

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  38. Andy Lamey

    I am grateful to Brian Leiter and Blinn Combs for taking the time to share their thoughts (and to Professor Leiter for fostering such a great discussion), but I am not sure I understand what picture of university ethics classes they are asking us to accept. On the one hand, they seem to suggest that there is a great deal of filtering that admits only students who share a circumscribed set of “correct” views. On the other hand, when some of those students continue through the system and come out the other side as ethics instructors themselves the result is an especially low level of agreement—which makes it sound like there is not much filtering. Robert Cummins’ remark about training seems more consistent with the first image than the second.

    Professor Leiter’s comment includes a link to one of his papers. When I click on the link it does not work, but I assume it is “Moral Skepticism and Moral Disagreement in Nietzsche,” which I found stimulating and informative when he first posted it. If this is the paper he is again directing us to, there is a passage in it that suggests the difference between Craimer and Leiter on moral theory may be smaller than it first appears:

    “Nietzsche, in fact, presents a fine armchair test case for any thesis about moral disagreement, since he so clearly repudiates ‘the egalitarian premise of all contemporary moral and political theory—the premise, in one form or another, of the equal worth and dignity of each person’ (Leiter 2002: 290).”

    This passage crisply captures contemporary moral and political theory. It is the same description of the academic landscape one finds at the beginning of books such as Practical Ethics by Peter Singer or Contemporary Political Philosophy by Will Kymlicka. As Leiter, Singer, Kymlicka, and many others have pointed out, there is a widely shared commitment within moral and political philosophy to an abstract conception of equality. We can debate the details—and moral and political philosophers love doing nothing more—but the fact that most academic moral and political debate takes place on what Ronald Dworkin has termed “an egalitarian plateau” has been widely noted.

    But if this is the case, it is not quite correct to say that debates over the criterion of right action are “foundational” disagreements. The debates between consequentialists, deontologists and the rest are better seen as debates about which theory best captures and conceptualizes the shared commitment to moral equality. Indeed, genuine debates about what morality requires would not be possible without some background agreement of this kind. Otherwise, exchanges between moral philosophers would be like people who speak different languages trying to have a conversation. They would not even have enough in common to agree on what they disagree about.

    Blinn Combs refers to the “blandness of the commitments” moral theorist share. That is an excellent way to put it. Singer and Kymlicka both start their books by basically saying, “look, equality is an unremarkable commitment most of us share. But from this bland premise some overlooked implications follow.” As Bertrand Russell once said, philosophy often involves getting from obvious premises to shocking conclusions, and much moral philosophy takes this form.

    Of course, the passage quoted above also notes that there are thinkers who do not occupy the egalitarian plateau. Nowhere does this seem truer than with Nietzsche. But I suspect many moral philosophers will shrug at this. Just as there are a small number of psychopaths out there who will never be persuaded by moral argument of any kind, so too there may also exist a few moral skeptics. But thoroughgoing moral skeptics of Nietzsche's fortitude are rare. As Nietzsche himself noted, morality seems to exert an inexorably pull on the overwhelming majority of human beings. If that is the case, there may actually be more consensus around the premises of moral theory than there is regarding those of biology, as more people may reject evolution than the thin conception of equality that moral theory presumes.

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  39. Paul Torek

    Justin Clarke-Doane compares what is observationally evident (in testing physical theories) to what ethical principles are intuitively evident. But aren't ethical principles the wrong level? A more apt comparison would be to ethical cases, e.g., "it was wrong for Amy to bite Bobby and take his toy." Agreement on ethical cases is still less than agreement on thermometer readings and tracks in bubble chambers, but it's better than agreement on ethical principles.

    Given the enormous motive we have to fudge on the ethical cases, perhaps the surprising thing is that we agree as much as we do. Luckily for rationalizers everywhere, the generalization to principles and the application of principles to one's own case still leave plenty of wiggle room.

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  40. Justin Clarke-Doane

    Paul, thanks for the response.

    I should have distinguished levels of abstraction with respect to ethical "principles" and empirical scientific ones. It doesn't seem to matter much what level we consider, however, for, as you point out, there appears to be more, and more problematic, disagreement over moral principles than there does over empirical scientific ones at any level.

    For instance, there is negligible disagreement over the gross character of medium-sized material things, and, when such disagreement arises, one of the parties can typically be rationally convinced that she was mistaken (e.g. she can be convinced that she has bad eyesight, and that her bad eyesight is to blame for her observation). By contrast, there is remarkable disagreement over the moral analog to this — e.g. over whether or not Maria's getting an abortion was morally permissible. What's worse, such disagreements don't seem to get settled in nearly as straightforward a way. Rarely, if ever, does someone concede, on the basis of compelling reasons, that he has bad "moral eyesight", and that, therefore, his moral judgments aren't to be trusted in the relevant circumstances.

    We find more dramatic divergence, as you note, at higher levels of abstraction. There is practical unanimity with respect to the empirical generalization that, say, bodies accelerate to the earth at roughly 9.8 m/s^2, but there is nothing approaching this with respect to the moral generalization that, say, lying is always wrong. When we turn to explanatory principles, such as the empirical scientific one that force is equivalent to the product of mass and acceleration and the ethical one, the categorical imperative, the divergence is startling.

    On the other hand, there are apparent exceptions to the pattern, and this leads to problems of "scorekeeping". For example, while "force = mass x acceleration" is an explanatory empirical scientific principle that commands near consensus among experts, there are, of course, other explanatory empirical scientific principles that don't. Similarly, while the categorical imperative is an explanatory ethical principle that generates widespread disagreement among ethicists, the principle that, other things being equal, one ought not hurt others just for the fun of it appears to be an explanatory ethical principle that doesn't. Clearly, if there is one principle that commands agreement or generates disagreement at any level of abstraction, then there are a countable infinity of such principles (just double negate or disjoin it, say, and then iterate). And it's plausible that there is one such principle in both domains at every such level. Of course, one is inclined to say that ethical principles that command agreement, in particular, are normally "trivial" or "uninteresting", but I am not sure that that is relevant.

    One caveat: You note that I contrasted "intuitively evident" ethical principles with "observationally evident" empirical scientific ones. I did not thereby intend to take a stand on the question of whether ethics is a posteriori. Even if ethical judgments are a posteriori, it is at least prima facie plausible that some are epistemically basic, like observational judgments.

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  41. Blinn Combs

    Thanks, Andy, for the reply.

    There's a fairly straightforward solution to the problem you raise about the two supposedly opposed pictures: I was making a point about the empirical accuracy of Barry's claims, if we take those claims to be reporting on the actual behavior of people quite generally when it comes to discussing ethical topics; Leiter, I believe, was discussing the filtering pressures faced by advanced students within professional communities to adopt the standards of those professional communities as a basic price of entry and recognition.

    Take the first paragraph you quote from Barry:

    "We all know how to engage in moral arguments, even if we would be flummoxed by being asked whether or not we subscribe to moral realism, objectivism, subjectivism, prescriptivism…. Thus, everyone proposes general principles, derives more specific principles from them, tests them by examples, argues from case to case by analogy, and so on."

    *IF* this is meant to state an empirical generalization about how everybody (including non-philosophers) engage in moral argument, it's simply false. Here are some other ways, that often proceed without any of those other tools: belittling, ridiculing, shaming, or threatening reprisal for certain types of speech act; appealing to authority; banning, obscuring, or otherwise manipulating the presentation of alternative views; appealing to emotion….

    Barry's comments are most charitably read as *instruction* in the rules of (minimally) responsible discourse in philosophical contexts; but precisely for that reason, it's dishonest to suggest that these are rules that we all "know." The only way to make that fly is to presuppose either that the audience consists solely of people long used to philosophical conversation or that the description is meant to capture rules of respectable argumentation quite generally, in which case the inclusion of "moral" before "arguments" is simply otiose. That you take the claim to be so empirically unobjectionable is, I dare say, a good indication of the style of argument to which you have become accustomed, but a poor guide to how people outside philosophy departments, or more broadly, respectable universities, argue.

    As to your last point, you're simply confusing domains again. It's fair enough to suggest that a basic ground-rule of being included in the community of moral philosophers is at least some rough committment to equality–though, as you note, there's very little agreement about what further committments (if any) that committment entails (I would say that this is because the committment lacks specific content, or better, becuase absent further specification it's not so much a committment as a slogan)–but who, looking out at the world, would say that this is a general presumption among people, even (especially!) the "moral" majority?? The whole point of Rawls' original position is to rule out the very real provincialism and prejudice that we find in existing human communities; and utilitarianism in its turn has a rich tradition of what Williams calls "Government House Utilitarianism," which straightforwardly prescribes different rules of conduct for (1) utilitarian policy-makers, and (2) those who are made to follow their policies. We would all do well to recall Mill's "A Few Words on Nonintervention," along with its modern parallels before trumpeting general human committment to egalitarianism.

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  42. Andy Lamey

    Thanks again, Blinn.

    If you accept that moral philosophers can make appeal both to general rules of argument and a shared premise of moral equality then you and I are in agreement regarding the points I most want to make. We both agree that contemporary moral philosophy is not an arena where we find an especially low level of consensus regarding "methodology" or a lack of shared premises.

    On the separate issue of disagreement among the general public, we may have to agree to disagree on how widespread a commitment to abstract equality is in society at large. I think it is widely affirmed, albeit often in contradictory and inchoate ways. (Hence the need for moral philosophy to sort out what conclusions do in fact follow). But let's suppose my account is way off base. The problem with your emphasis on belittling, ridiculing, shaming etc. can be seen whether or not one accepts my view of how widely a thin conception of equality is now shared.

    It is no knock against moral philosophy to note that people often appeal to force, authority etc. Ethical views based on fallacies pose the same problem for moral philosophy as creationism does for biology or a belief in the Loch Ness Monster does for zoology. It is too bad that people make such glaring mistakes, but the standards of investigation the discipline employs are unaffected.

    This is why both Brian Barry and Prof. Leiter in the paper referred to above ignore practices of the kind you stress. Debates in which one side is clearly fallacious have no relevance to the question of whether or not moral philosophy employs a problematic standard of justification or truth, which is the philosophical question at issue.

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