15/3/11 10:37 Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism | Philosophy Now

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Articles
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral
Objectivism
After our recent Death of Morality issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the
amoralists.
Philosophers who aspire to describe reality without resort to myth, too often remain
in thrall to the myth of absolute neutrality. Myths are not without their proper
uses, and belief in absolute neutrality can be a useful, even an indispensable
premise in the practices of science, jurisprudence, sports refereeing, and a host of
other activities in which we want to discourage corrupting biases. Still, absolute neutrality is a myth, one
memorably formulated by Thomas Nagel as the view from nowhere. There is no view from nowhere, and
any philosophical practice which pretends to occupy that mythical perspective sows confusion.
In this article I will describe and defend my kind of moral viewpoint (not my specific viewpoint). The label
I will use for this kind of viewpoint is moral objectivism, because this creates a stark contrast with moral
subjectivism and moral relativism the views that no coherent morality is better than any other
coherent morality, which along with moral nihilism the denial of any morality present the most
philosophically popular moral perspectives that are not of my kind.
Moral objectivism, as I use the term, is the view that a single set of principles determines the
permissibility of any action, and the correctness of any judgment regarding an actions permissibility. Does
this view deserve the label moral objectivism? I think it does. Although it doesnt claim that moral
principles exist independent of the people who hold them, or that moral properties such as justice exist
independently of moral principles, it forthrightly states that some actions are right and some are wrong,
regardless of the judgments others may make about them. In making that claim, I am in conflict with the
relativists and nihilists, both of whom assert that moral objectivism is poorly grounded compared to
alternative metaethics. (A metaethic is a view about the nature of morality. It is not a particular moral
view.) These philosophers maintain that moral objectivism requires that we can only validate an actions
moral status or a judgments moral correctness by resorting to some beyond-human authority some
moral reality external to people which serves as the source of whatever set of principles a moral objectivist
believes determines moral values and correctness. These relativists and nihilists claim that objectivism
needs something like God, but they disbelieve there is anything like God, so they conclude that moral
objectivism requires something which does not exist.
I share the relativist/nihilist rejection of any form of supernaturalism. I do not believe in God, or in any
other external authority that grounds moral objectivism. Indeed, I do not think morality can be grounded
in any external source. Yet I am a moral objectivist, and I think there is a good chance you are too. In
what follows I do not defend the content of my moral beliefs, nor make any presumptions about the
content of yours. I do, however presume that many of you take the content your moral beliefs as seriously
as I do mine. I will seek to persuade you that moral o bjectivism is at least as rational, as well-grounded,
and as consistent with reality, as any alternative metaethic. The fundamental error of relativist and nihilist
arguments against objectivism is the implicit claim that morality can be judged from nowhere.
Categorical Permissibility Rules: The Form of Morality
The nature of motivation is the province of psychologists, who study it empirically. However, without
stirring from our armchairs, we can safely say that people are sometimes motivated by rules that they
have accepted, such as move chess bishops only along the diagonals, or floss daily. Acceptance of a rule
can, in part, constitute motives for actions.
Not only can rules motivate actions, they also influence judgments about the correctness of actions. The
rule about chess bishops underlies my judgment that it is incorrect to move a bishop along the horizontal.
While there are no precise criteria for whether or not a person has accepted a rule, or for measuring the
degree of acceptance, acceptance implies that the rule has some motivational force and influence on
judgments. It would be nonsensical to say, Silver accepts the rule forbidding moving bishops horizontally,
although he is not in the least inclined to follow the rule, nor does he see anything at all incorrect about
moving bishops horizontally.
Among the rules that can motivate actions and determine judgments are those that classify all possible
actions as either permissible or impermissible. I call such rules categorical permissibility rules (henceforth,
simply permissibility rules). Common examples of permissibility rules include: it is always impermissible
to act in a way that will not increase overall happiness or reduce overall suffering (John Stuart Mill
promoted that one); it is always impermissible to treat someone merely as a means (a favorite of
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Immanuel Kants); never do to others that which is hateful to you (the Talmudic version of a commonplace
in religious ethics); always obey whatever the priest tells you God has commanded (another commonplace
in religious traditions); and, never act against self-interest (Ayn Rand). Less common, but equally possible
permissibility rules include: never run for a bus (Mel Brooks); and, never act against Mitchell Silvers
interests (no one, alas). There are an endless number of possible permissibility rules.
If you accept, or stand ready to accept either implicitly or explicitly, a set of permissibility rules as
determining the correctness of all possible actions, then you are a moral objectivist. Someone who accepts,
say, the permissibility rule everyone should pursue wealth above all else and judges all people and
actions accordingly, relates to that rule as moral people relate to morality. It has the form of a moral rule,
and anyone who accepts it is a moral objectivist, for she accepts a specific permissibility rule. For any
objectivist, the content of her permissibility rules constitutes what she takes to be morality. Someone who
accepts t he everyone should pursue wealth above all else rule thereby takes the pursuit of wealth to be
the essence of morality. I do not accept that rule, so I judge it a mistake to believe that it has moral
authority. I judge those who accept that rule to be in moral error; but still, they are, like me, moral
objectivists.
Of course, you dont have to know you are an objectivist to be one. Perhaps you simply have never
indulged in metaethics, or perhaps you are self-deceived, or lack self-knowledge, and do not realize that
you accept a specific set of permissibility rules.
Clearly, many people do accept categorical permissibility rules, including me, maybe you, and very likely
your mother. Permissibility rules exist, and anyone who has genuinely accepted a specific set of them must
thus judge that morality exists. Moreover, the acceptance of permissibility rules (and thus morality) is a
natural phenomenon. There is nothing mysterious or spooky about the rules, their acceptance by people,
or about the motivational forces they produce. Accepting a permissibility rule is compatible with all of the
following: understanding the scientific explanations of the causes of ones acceptance; believing that you
do not understand all of the implications of the rule you have accepted; believing that you could come to
reform or abandon the rule you currently accept; failing sometimes, maybe often, and perhaps always, to
act in accordance with the rule; and finally, knowing that others adhere to different permissibility rules.
Explaining Morality
The acceptance of permissibility rules has many causes, as does determination of the specific content of
the rules. Among the most notable causes of content are other peoples permissibility rules, and other
peoples reactions to yours. Its easier to live with those who agree with you about the rules of permissible
behavior. Moreover, we are influenced by what others, such as our parents, promote as the basic rules. In
addition, most of us wish to be seen by others as decent members of society, who abide by commonly-
accepted permissibility rules (ie, standards). Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) vividly pointed out that we all
want to prosper, and we all represent a threat to each other, therefore, as prudent, self-interested
animals, we naturally seek enforceable rules to promote prosperity and reduce the mutual threat. Other
philosophers have argued that the most acceptable rules likely to emerge from this human condition will
enshrine fairness and equality at their center. The social and life sciences have also weighed in:
economists have shown how permissibility rules grease commerce, psychologists how they emerge from
our emotions, sociologists how they stabilize communities, and evolutionary biologists how they enhance
fitness.
The drive to organize our judgments of actions into a logical structure, the urge to rationalize or justify
them, is surely one significant explanation of the existence of permissibility rules. Those who value reason
and psychic harmony will likely be attracted to rules that justify their gut feelings. If you feel that bull-
fighting is wrong, and you like to have reasons for your feelings, you will be open to a rule that implies
bull-fighting is wrong. But the causal chain can also go in the opposite direction. An inclination for rational
orderliness may cause your moral feelings to align with your current theoretical commitments. Some who
have no pre-theoretical moral dislike of bull-fighting may well come to have a moral dislike of it because a
rule they accept brands it as wrong. Many a philosopher has become a vegetarian not out of any sympathy
for animals, but from a love of consistency and acceptance of a permissibility rule that forbids causing
gratuitous suffering.
Justifying Moral Judgments
An explanation provides an account of what something is or how something came about, and in theory
anything can be explained; but an explanation is not a justification: a justification gives an account of why
something is right, or why its right to believe something. Little Marys belief that she will receive a
Christmas gift is explained by her belief in Santa, but it is justified by her parents reliable generosity.
Similarly, the above considerations go a long way to explaining the widespread acceptance of certain kinds
of permissibility rules, but none of them justifies any permissibility rule. My charitable acts, such as they
are, are explained by my upbringing; but if the acts are justified, it is due to a principle that recommends
charity, or at least allows it. Only some things, such as beliefs, statements and actions, are candidates for
justification. Explanations too are candidates for justification, for an explanation can be right or wrong.
Since explanations can be justified, and justifications can be explained, it is easy to conflate the two.
Nevertheless, explanation and justification are separate (albeit overlapping) processes, and by itself no
amount of explanation ever justifies anything.
The permissibility rules you accept are for you neither justified nor unjustified: they justify. As the sources
of moral justification, permissibility rules are similar to the sources of non-moral justification: no adequate
reason can be given for accepting or rejecting the sources that does not beg the question. We can justify
beliefs; but we can justify the principles we employ to justify beliefs only with circular reasoning. Likewise,
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we can justify actions, but we cannot without circularity or indefinite regress justify the principles we
employ to justify actions. The justification of principles would require a resort to other justifying principles,
which would themselves be unjustified. As Hume taught us, the belief that the future will resemble the
past is unjustifiable, but we label those who disbelieve the sun will rise tomorrow irrational. For most of
us, inductive reasoning [reasoning from experience, eg of rising suns] is an essential tool for justifying
beliefs. It does a fairly good job of justifying beliefs we feel ought to be justified, in spite of the fact that
its implications are not always clear or beyond dispute. Moreover, the principle of induction is compatible
with the other principles most of us have in our belief-justifying-tool-kit. Of course there are those who
reject the entire tool-kit. We call them mad, or illogical. Analogously, we call those who truly reject our
central permissibility rules monstrous or morally obtuse. For example, without us having justified the
underlying moral principle which rationalizes the judgment, we label immoral those who disbelieve that
genocide is wrong. This is not simple name-calling, it is categorization according to the epistemological
and moral principles we accept.
As long as a set of permissibility rules does not require impossible actions (cure cancer, fly to Mars, eat
your cake and have it, never die), or posit non-existing entities (the tooth fairy, the Devil, the eternal
incorporeal commander), there are no epistemic or practical reasons for rejecting or it, just as there are
none for accepting it. Hume famously, and correctly, said that you cannot derive ought from is. It is
equally important to note that you cannot derive ought not to accept oughts from is. The rejection of all
permissibility rules has no more justification than the acceptance of a specific permissibility rule. The
consequences of accepting or rejecting permissibility rules are another matter entirely; but whatever they
are, by themselves consequences cannot constitute a justification. Relativists and nihilists sometimes
attempt to justify their anti-objectivism by invoking what they assert are the effects of belief in moral
objectivism: arrogance, smugness, intolerance, and widespread suffering. I dispute that those are the
dominant effects of all objectivisms: a liberal, sensitive, egalitarian consequentialist (a species of
objectivist), ever mindful of the fallibility of her judgments, can humbly try to foresee suffering, and
minimize it. However, even granting the relativist/ nihilist assessment of the empirical effects of all and
any objectivism, without a permissibility principle requiring avoidance of those effects, the relativist/nihilist
has provided no grounds for rejecting objectivism. Railing against objectivism for the harms it causes is
like protesting that the Constitution is unconstitutional.
To say that a permissibility rule is unjustified is not to say that it is arbitrary, its only to say that it is
contingent that, like the historical and personal facts on which it is based, it might have been other than
what it is. No permissibility rule is true of necessity. If I wasnt who I am, I might well have had other
permissibility rules, or none. But the fact that our permissibility rules are expressions of who we are
makes them the opposite of arbitrary not accidental attachments to us, but rather organic elements of
us. Although we cannot justify them, we can be proud of them, loyal to them, and pleased with their
effects. We can note how well they perform certain functions, and we can be pleased that their acceptance
violates no norms of knowledge nor requires belief in metaphysical oddities. Still, these feelings and
observations do not justify our rules.
Metaethics and Moral Disagreement
Although it brings all possible actions under a single standard, a permissibility rule can be complex, and its
application sensitive to circumstances. A permissibility rule may require that the time, place, effects, and
the nature of the people involved be considered when evaluating an action. It may even take into account
the acceptance of different permissibility rules by other people. (Indeed, objectivity demands the
incorporation of information from as many perspectives as possible.) Information about other peoples
rules should shape a moral perspective, but it doesnt undermine its validity. For instance, I know that
there are people who categorically accept the rule that one should never mistreat their holy scriptures. I
accept no such rule, but my awareness of others acceptance of the rule, combined with a rule I do accept,
that everyone should show respect for others feelings, results in me not mistreating others holy
scriptures. I do not respect the holy scripture rule in itself; but I respect the holders of that rule, and in
doing so I must often respect their rule. But this derivative respect for their permissibility rules does not
mean I accept their rules to make my moral judgments.
Your metaethics depends on whether you genuinely accept a permissibility rule. If you have genuinely
accepted specific permissibility rules, in accordance with that acceptance, then you must judge that there
are rules which categorize any actions permissibility, ie, its morality, and you are a moral objectivist. If in
addition you accept the same permissibility rules as I do, we agree about the essential substance of
morality. Nonetheless, we may yet disagree about the correct classification of a particular action, or kind
of action. These disagreements can stem from disputes about concepts (how shall we define pain?), facts
(does an eighteen-week-old fetus feel pain?), or logic (does we ought not perform abortions follow from
we ought never inflict pain unnecessarily?). Common acceptance of specific permissibility rules leaves
room for differences of particular judgments.
Your specific permissibility rules constitute what you take to be morality, but they are likely to permit
inconsistent courses of action: permission is not the same as direction. For example, a rule that implies
you should not eat animals allows that the daily consumption of carrots is moral and that the refusal to
ever eat carrots is also moral. Indeed that rule permits you to starve yourself to death. You remain a
moral objectivist even if the permissibility rule(s) you accept allow you to do almost anything. S ome
permissibility rules allow an infinite number of morally permissible acts. The only requirement for your
moral objectivist status is that the rules you accept classify some actions as morally out-of-bounds. And
objectivism is not totalitarianism: even if you believe there are some things that no one ought to do, you
can believe that there are many ways to lead an overall good life, and many situations that permit
different courses of action. Hence a moral objectivist can be an ethical pluralist.
There may be people who share your permissibility rules, but also accept additional permissibility rules you
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do not accept. Maybe, like you, they think it immoral to eat animals, but unlike you, they also believe it is
immoral to eat carrots. What are you to make of these people? You must judge that these people
misclassify many actions as immoral. You must judge that they have mistaken what are matters of
custom, convention, or personal taste, for matters of moral import. You may well judge that two parties,
both of whom take themselves to be in serious moral conflict one says it is immoral to eat carrots, the
other that it is immoral not to eat carrots are both correctthat their preferred course of action is morally
permissible, and are both incorrect that the others preference is morally forbidden. Their passionate belief
that they are in moral disagreement does not mean you must, from your perspective, take them to be in
moral disagreement.
Your assessment of other peoples morality depends on which specific permissibility rules you genuinely
accept. If you really accept as categorical a rule that permits carrot eating, then you must conclude that
others are simply morally incorrect to judge carrot eating immoral. You are not doubting the sincerity of
their judgment; but acknowledging their sincerity is not the same as acknowledging their correctness.
Now if your permissibility rules conflict with the rules I accept, we are both objectivists, but were in
fundamental moral conflict. To remain true to my acceptance of rules that allow but do not demand carrot
eating, I must conclude that you are mistaken to think eating carrots is immoral. True to your different
permissibility rules, you must judge my moral indifference to carrot consumption morally incorrect. Anyone
tempted to take a perspective above the fray will either have permissibility rules from which she can judge
which of us is correct (if either), or she has not accepted any permissibility rules. If she has accepted
permissibility rules, they will either allow or disallow carrot eating. She is an objectivist, just like us, and
can weigh in on our dispute. If she accepts no permissibility rules whatsoever, the very idea of moral
permissibility has no claim on her, and she has nothing relevant to offer those of us who do feel the pull
of permissibility rules. She is not an objectivist, and both you and I (albeit by virtue of different rules)
must conclude that she is without morals. Hardly someone we should ask to arbitrate our moral dispute
over carrot eating.
Relativists, Nihilists, Amoralists and Objectivists
If you, dear reader, claim in perfectly good faith not to accept any permissibility rules, then I could in
haste judge that you are without morals. But not to worry; I believe that your moral nihilism is probably
only a theoretical posture, inconsistent with your actual acceptance of permissibility rules, as reflected in
your actual judgments of particular actions. Although your acceptance of permissibility rules implies that
you accept that those rules are applicable to all actions and judgments, including your own theoretical
judgments, your permissibility rules may allow you (as mine do me) to temporarily pretend that you do
not accept them, in order to see what might in theory follow from their non-acceptance. But temporarily
playing the amoralist in order to try and imagine how the world looks from that perspective, is not genuine
amorality.
The assertion of a robust moral relativism means adopting a perspective from which all permissibility rules
are viewed as equally valid. It is important (and often difficult) to keep in mind that moral relativism is
not the descriptive claim that people have different and conflicting moral judgments; rather it is the
normative claim that no moral judgment is more or less correct than any other. To become a sincere
moral relativist one must abandon ones permissibility rules without embracing other permissibility rules. A
relativist could consistently act in accordance with any permissibility rule, but she cannot consistently
believe there are any justifications for these actions.
If you sincerely and fully, even if only in theory, accept, say, a rule that its immoral to torture people, a
rule that its immoral not to torture people, and another rule that torture is morally indifferent, then
youve taken an incoherent theoretical position thats equivalent to the denial of morality moral nihilism.
The other way to go, the non-acceptance of all permissibility rules, is not the mythical stance of neutrality,
it is the particular viewpoint of amorality. It is not the discovery that no rules apply to all possible actions;
it is a failure to apply any such rules. It is not an undistorted perspective which reveals moralitys non-
existence: it is simply an amoral perspective. This is not how I see things, and I suspect it is not how you
see things. I am, and you probably are, a moral objectivist.
Moral objectivism requires only the acceptance of a set of permissibility rules. This involves no
metaphysical delusions. Your permissibility rules may be tolerant, liberal, modest, tentative and
undogmatic, or the opposite. So long as theyre truly yours, you are a moral objectivist. So are you?
Mitchell Silver 2011
Mitchell Silver is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts/Boston and the author
of books on secular religious identity and secular understandings of theology. He is currently writing a
book on moral objectivism.