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Moral Disagreement and Arational Convergence

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Abstract

Smith (The Moral Problem, 1994) has argued that moral realism need not be threatened by apparent moral disagreement. One reason he gives is that moral debate has tended to illicit convergence in moral views. From here, he argues inductively that current disagreements will likely be resolved on the condition that each party is rational and fully informed. The best explanation for this phenomenon, Smith argues, is that there are mind-independent moral facts that humans are capable of knowing. In this paper, I seek to challenge this argument—and more recent versions of it—by arguing that historical convergence in moral views may occur for various arational reasons (i.e. reasons not derived from rational debate about truths). If such reasons possibly result in convergence—which Smith effectively concedes—then the moral realist would require an additional a posteriori argument to establish that convergence in moral views occurred for the right reasons. Hence, Smith-style arguments, as they stand, cannot be mobilised in support of moral realism. Rather, this investigation demonstrates the necessity of a genuine history of morality for any convergence claim in support of a meta-ethical view.

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Notes

  1. For instance: Mackie (1977), Williams (1985), Wright (1992), Smith (1994), Sturgeon (1994), Korsgaard (1996), Jackson (1998), Scanlon (1998), Pettit (1999), O'Neill (2000), Lillehammer (2004), Parfit (2011) and Rowland (2016). For a denial of the Convergence Thesis, see McGrath (2010).

  2. The sense of ‘objectivity’ I am using here excludes moral relativism—the view that some moral judgements are true only relative to specific frameworks—from qualifying as a form of realism, since what determines moral frameworks are human perceptions, attitudes or practices.

  3. I say ‘most cases’ of disagreement instead of ‘all’, because if there was just one fundamental disagreement—for instance: whether to give 20% or 30% of one’s salary to charity—this would not undermine realism. I am grateful to Richard Rowland for this point.

  4. Point 1 is a common strategy in defence of realism. Many of the reasons I will discuss shortly in response to point 2 can also be mobilised to respond to this line of argument. Point 3 claims that much disagreement can be explained in terms of irrationality (e.g. poor reasoning, or stubbornness), or reducible to ignorance about non-moral facts which inform moral judgements. For a defence of especially the latter, see Boyd (1988, p. 213) and Rachels (1999, p. 23).

  5. For example, if A is more consilient and simpler than B, then A is clearly a better explanation; If A and B are equal in consilience but A is simpler, then A is a better explanation; If A and B are equal in simplicity but A is more consilient, then A is a better explanation (see Miller 2017, pp. 176–177).

  6. I say at least partly, because the argument—in Smith’s version and others which appeal to rational reflection and debate more broadly—have also been attacked on the grounds that rational debate and reflection is severely difficult for people to do because of evolutionary and social conditioning which predispose people to make certain moral judgements (Tersman 2006, p. 28); that humans are susceptible to a host of biases and framing effects (Sinnott-Armstrong 2006); that humans tend to be poor at both noticing and correcting inconsistencies and incoherences in their own beliefs and arguments, and appreciating the strengths of opposing positions (Mercier and Sperber 2011).

  7. Deborah Rhode has explored this bias in detail and its legal implications. See Chapters 1 and 2 especially of Rhode (2010).

  8. The implications of this (e.g. one’s status in society which enables opportunities; one’s abiding by the law which may be partly informed by the moral norms of a society) may give one excellent prudential reasons to at least appear to agree with the majority in moral matters.

  9. Examples of this mechanism of implicit coercion are particularly apt in colonial and post-colonial societies. A concrete example can be seen in the Australian Aboriginal context. For an in-depth analysis, see in particular Nakata (2007) and Moreton-Robinson (2015).

  10. As Joyce notes, there is already a presumption here in that two parties debating are already in dialogue with one another, negotiating over an already agreed idea that convergence is desirable (Joyce 2001, p. 90).

  11. On this point, one is immediately reminded of Nietzsche’s speculation about the earliest human societies forming for survival, and the compulsion to have a shared custom which commands obedience, whatever it may be: “any custom is better than no custom” (Nietzsche 1997, Sect. 16).

  12. I shall grant, for the sake of argument, that Huemer is correct about this empirical data.

  13. See Forster (2011) for a very helpful analysis of the genealogical method.

  14. The paradigmatic exception to this would Hegel, who views history as broadly revealing an ever perfected self-consciousness. Again see Forster (2011) for how Hegel differs from others in the genealogical tradition.

  15. This point was suggested to me by an anonymous reviewer, to whom I am grateful.

  16. For attention to a functional understanding of moral norms (and its predictive power) as a specific response to Huemer’s realism, see Hopster (2019), especially Sect. 5.2.3.

  17. Nor is this type of genealogy the only method of accounting for patterns of convergence. For an account of norms as evolutionary adaptations see Ruse and Wilson (1986).

  18. Here I concur with Richard Joyce, who writes that the “inter alia” is an admission which “effectively dismantles Smith’s argument” (Joyce 2001, p. 88). See also Simon Fitzpatrick who, although sympathetic to realism in the face of moral disagreement, similarly claims that due to the mere possibility of multiple arational explanations, a Smith-style argument from straightforward convergence to moral realism is implausible: “apparent instances of moral agreement may not be the output of a process of moral inquiry either, but rather the product of joint cultural inheritance, or perhaps the constraints imposed by an innate normative grammar. Thus, contrary to realists (e.g. Smith 1994) that have sought to use arguments from agreement to establish the reliability of moral inquiry, convergence on the truth may not provide the best explanation for the cases of moral agreement that we do find” (Fitzpatrick 2014, p. 189).

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Hassan, P. Moral Disagreement and Arational Convergence. J Ethics 23, 145–161 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-019-09284-4

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