Abstract
I first argue that there are many true claims of the form: Φ-ing would be morally required, if anything is. I then explain why the following conditional-type is true: If φ-ing would be morally required, if anything is, then anything is actually morally required. These results allow us to construct valid proofs for the existence of some substantive moral facts—proofs that some particular acts really are morally required. Most importantly, none of my argumentation presupposes any substantive moral claim; I use only plausible claims that most moral skeptics and error theorists can and do accept. The final section diagnoses why my arguments work. Here, I offer an explanation for the supervenience of the moral on the non-moral that may help those worried that the strategy is a sophisticated trick. I conclude by considering two objections. In replying to these objections, I explain why the strategy may allow us to demonstrate more than “obvious” moral truths, and why it may also address a stronger version of error theory, according to which, moral truths are not possible.
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Notes
“Wrong,” in this paper, is meant to broadly refer to those actions that morally ought not to be performed. I recognize that some theorists use “wrong” in a more restricted sense, for example designating a class of acts that make one a fitting object of particular attitudes or as designating a feature acts may possess independently of available alternatives. My arguments will not purport to show that particular acts are wrong in these more restricted senses; they are putative proofs that certain acts morally ought not to be done, perhaps only given a range of alternatives. While not all normative theories predict that punching the gas is wrong in the strict sense, for example see Norcross (2006), I submit that they do converge on the conclusion that you morally ought not to punch the gas when the choice is between punching and not punching.
By “substantial moral claims” I mean claims that (1) can be denied without immediate contradiction, and (2) attribute valenced moral properties (e.g. being right, being wrong, being what you morally ought (or ought not) to do, being good, being bad, being supererogatory, being evil, being just) to actual objects or object-types non-normatively described. I take valenced moral properties to be those that entail the existence of a normative reason to do or to not do, some act. Claims that something is not morally required and conditional moral claims like “Sex without consent is wrong, if anything is” are not substantive, for they are (by themselves) consistent with nihilism—the thesis that no actual objects are right or wrong.
For a nice overview and defense of this thesis see Sinnott-Armstrong (2006, pp. 135–167). The idea’s origin is often attributed to Hume (Treatise, 3.1.1.27), whose position is often unfairly encapsulated in the slogan “you cannot derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’.
For a unique defense of this claim, plus a powerful argument that our moral beliefs cannot be explained by the actual instantiation of moral properties, see Zangwill (2005).
See Sinnott-Armstrong (2006, pp. 53–60) for a thorough defense. Furthermore, even if we could vindicate a substantive moral claim in this way, doing so may be a pyrrhic victory. As Rawls suggests, even if our moral concepts entail substantive moral conclusions, we can still ask whether alternative concepts might be preferable. See Rawls (1971, p. 51). Thus, perhaps these arguments could (at best) tell us something about our concepts while ignoring the crucial normative issue—what is to be done?
Here the most famous work is Mackie (1977, pp. 30–42). Admittedly, a plausible naturalism may make many of the above worries moot. But while there are powerful arguments for the broad naturalist project, these arguments cannot allay skeptical concerns without an account of which particular natural properties moral properties are. No such account has enjoyed much favor; and there is doubt that any could be forthcoming, see for example, Horgan and Timmons (1992) for specific concerns about “synthetic” naturalism, and Yablo (2000) for concerns about Frank Jackson’s (1998) alternative. See Sinnott-Armstrong (2006, pp. 135–152) and Shafer-Landau (2003, pp. 58–65) for more general concerns.
Sinnott-Armstrong (2006, pp. 112–130).
Joyce (2001, p. 77).
This sort of skepticism is rare, but it is not outlandish. For example, imagine someone who argues that there are no moral requirements because no actual being has the cognitive capacities required for agency, and, there are no moral requirements if no agent is bound by them.
See Mackie (1977, pp. 38–42).
See Garner (1990).
See Olson (2010, p. 7).
The insistence that theories best explain observations is irrelevant. Metaphysically impossible explanations are not even candidates for being among the best explanations. And thus, the metaphysical “queerness” of these theories could not have been taken as grounds for their impossibility. In short, no observation could give us grounds for accepting a metaphysically impossible theory.
Olson (2010, p. 10).
By “plausible normative theory,” in this paper, I mean something extraordinarily weak. For my purposes here, a plausible normative theory is any recognizable view about what morally ought to be done that can survive cursory reflection by one competent with moral concepts. It needn’t be a robust normative theory, composed of cognitively manageable and systematically related moral principles. Instead, it may merely be a loose disjunction of moral verdicts.
The quotes are from Zangwill (2008).
See Kim (1987), Petrie (1987) and Chalmers (1996) for the idea that global supervenience is weaker than strong supervenience, and perhaps weaker than “weak” supervenience [A-properties weakly supervene on B-properties if and only if for any possible world w and any individuals x and y in w, if x and y are B-indiscernible in w, then they are A-indiscernible in w].
Some may object that my argument would “prove too much.” To illustrate, consider the following puzzle: Act Utilitarianism and the Kantian Deontology cannot both be actually true. But, it seems that they are each possibly true. But if the relevant possibility is metaphysical, and no non-normative features of our world preclude either of these theories, then we can infer that there are possible worlds like ours where Act Utilitarianism and Kantian Deontology are true. Thus, using the inference I used before, Act Utilitarianism and Kantian Deontology are both actually true! Something must go, but the only available culprits are supervenience or the claim that both of these views are metaphysically possible. I will not reject supervenience. And anyone who reflects on the implications of supervenience/non-arbitrariness constraints on morality will think twice about casually pronouncing on the metaphysical possibility of particular normative theories. For, given supervenience, the metaphysical possibility of a normative theory excludes the possibility of any other normative theory (more carefully, it would exclude the possibility of any normative theory that entailed a different distribution of moral properties at the relevant world). Because the supervenience constraint is thought to be a conceptual truth, the premise that generated the puzzle—Act Utilitarianism and the Kantian Deontology are both possibly true—is either a conceptual falsehood or must be interpreted as invoking a different modality, presumably epistemic possibility.
This objection was brought to my attention by Matt Bedke.
Korsgaard (1996, p. 47).
Joyce (2001, p. 100).
Rather than call attention to specific responses to Joyce, I’d like to point the reader to some powerful arguments that suggest the reverse of Joyce’s thesis: the reasons of practical rationality can be normative only if there are the agent-neutral reasons Joyce rejects. See Kolodny (2005), Parfit (1997).
Failure to abide by your moral commitments is a failure to abide by the requirement of practical rationality first called “Enkrasia” by Aristotle, and echoed in contemporary work on practical rationality, it is the requirement which akrasia violates.
See Sidgwick (1981, pp. 373–389).
Therefore, amazingly, conceptual truths about morality, plus an assumption about what would be required if anything is, allow us to move from an agnostic position about whether moral facts are possible to the conclusion that some are actual. Let me vaguely suggest that the best move for the error-theorist may not be to resist this reasoning, but to exploit it—to insist that this is the very proof required that such facts would be intolerably queer. In short, they might contend there can be no mind-independent facts that permit such inferences, and because moral concepts appear to license such inferences, there is something inherently problematic about moral discourse—its concepts are not apt to describe any possible mind-independent reality.
See Foot (1978, p. xii).
However, it is worth noting that my arguments would not succeed if the actual instantiation of moral properties (1) were that which explains why we have grounds to act in particular ways, and (2) so explain independently of the non-moral properties on which they supervene. Consequently, the error-theorist or skeptic might claim that it is this view that is his target—there are no moral facts of that kind. But this reply is not satisfying. Although my arguments would not work for a “morality” of that kind, I never assumed (for the arguments) that morality is not like that, and apparently that is not the morality evoked in our moral discourse. How do I know? I know, because these arguments used only apparent conceptual truths about morality, conceptual truths that would look patently false if you thought about moral properties as the providers of reasons independently of properties on which they supervene. Consequently, we have evidence that the discourse error-theorists find problematic is not ours.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer, David Boonin, Russ Shafer-Landau, David Faraci, Matt Bedke, Jonas Olson, Elizabeth Guthrie, David Shoemaker, Michael Brady, Chris Heathwood, and David Copp for their help in producing this paper.
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Coons, C. How to prove that some acts are wrong (without using substantive moral premises). Philos Stud 155, 83–98 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9565-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9565-5