Abstract
David Wong (2006) has introduced the notion of moral ambivalence in the philosophical debate. In this paper, we focus on the nature of moral ambivalence and on its interpretation. We hold that moral ambivalence is not a phenomenon that provides evidence for relativism, as Wong claims, and as relativism is usually understood. Rather, ambivalence denotes a pluralist attitude, an attitude characterized by the thought that two different, even incompatible, courses of action can both be permissible when considered from a single perspective. We distinguish pluralism from relativism and argue that it is more appropriate to consider Wong’s position as an objectivist pluralism (as pluralism is characterized by Berlin and others). We also highlight the similarity between Wong and Hume’s accounts.
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Notes
There is an intense debate in philosophy of language between truth-relativists and contextualists, or indexicalists. For us, truth-relativism (Kölbel 2005) and indexicalism (Prinz 2007) about moral terms are both moral relativisms. Both positions hold that the truth of a moral statement depends on who evaluates it, that moral disagreements are typically faultless, and that they can be settled once both parties realize that they are talking from different perspectives. Truth-relativists may want to hold that, even after this kind of realization, there remains a disagreement concerning a kind of content, but we think that, for our purposes, this difference between truth-relativism and indexicalism is not substantial.
As we will see, objectivists (provided they are also pluralist) may grant that some disagreements are faultless, in the sense that both participants can be right. Yet, many moral disagreements are not faultless. One of the parties is definitely wrong, according to the objectivist.
We realize that it may sound odd to dispute Wong’s self-characterization as a relativist. Our point is that, if the terms are used in the sense we propose—which we think are quite standard—moral ambivalence does point toward a non-relativist pluralism. If I feel morally ambivalent, we do not think “ok, this is good/permissible from our point of view—but not from theirs; and that is good/permissible from their point of view—but not from ours.” Rather, ambivalence makes one think (at least: see below) “ok., this is certainly good for us; but that seems to be correct as well, also considered from our point of view.” We are not the first ones in disputing the adequateness of Wong’s self-characterization, however. Baghmarian (2004; 215), although she does not mention ambivalence, claims that “Wong’s position is closer to the pluralism advocated in this book than to the normative relativism discussed in this section.” The issue bears some parallelism to the view advocated by Berlin with respect to Vico and Herder’s alleged relativisms—which he, Berlin, regarded as pluralisms (Berlin 1988: see below).
There is a difference here between Nagel and Wong, because in Nagel’s case, the rejection of universalism stems from his embracing the fragmentation thesis, while Wong grounds his denial in the fact that different groups rank the different values in different ways. To us, this looks like an unnecessary detour.
See also Wong (2006; 5): “We see that reasonable and knowledgeable people could have made different decisions, and any prior convictions we might have had about the superiority of our own decisions get shaken.”
We have been assuming that the notion of moral dilemma makes sense. However, there is an intense debate concerning the very conceptual possibility of moral dilemmas (see Gowans 1987; McConnell 2014). From a pluralist perspective, the existence of moral dilemmas is not problematic (it is problematic from a universalist—Wong’s sense—perspective). Actually, we take it that it is an explanatory virtue of pluralism that it can explain the existence of moral dilemmas.
This is a reconstruction: We do not want to be committed to any psychological reading of this sketch.
“A notional confrontation [which makes relativism possible], by contrast, occurs when some people know about two divergent outlooks, but at least one of those outlooks does not present a real option. The idea of a ‘real option’ is largely, but not entirely, a social notion. An outlook is a real option for a group either if it already is their outlook or if they could go over to it: and they could go over to it if they could live inside it in their actual historical circumstances and retain their hold on reality, not engage in extensive self-deception, and so on” Williams (1985; 160–1). Hume (1751) and Berlin (1988) do not seem to consider that historical or geographical distance makes a difference to the distance between moralities. Berlin’s quote above is an instance of this attitude: “Members of one culture can, by the force of imaginative insight, understand (what Vico called entrare) the values, the ideals, the forms of life of another culture or society, even those remote in time or space” (our italics). Hume’s following quote may reflect the same position: “Though many ages have elapsed since the fall of Greece and Rome; though many changes have arrived in religion, language, laws, and customs; none of these revolutions has ever produced any considerable innovation in the primary sentiments of morals…” (1751; 335–336).
We do not know of any study that would support that moral ambivalence is a widespread phenomenon (although we think it is), although we find the work on “choice blindness” by Hall et al. (2012) suggestive in this respect. In the study they discuss, the experimenters went down to the street to ask people about their moral opinions. Subjects had to give a number on a scale telling how much they agreed with some moral stand (e.g., “It is morally defensible to purchase sexual services in democratic societies where prostitution is legal and regulated by the government”). When the page was turned, however, the part of the questions got stuck in the back part of the folder, and a different set of questions appeared. The new questionnaire contained a list of statements that contradicted the original ones (e.g., “It is morally reprehensible to purchase sexual services in democratic societies where prostitution is legal and regulated by the government”). It turned out that the majority of the subjects did not notice the reversal and that they justified what was not in fact their stated moral preference. Of course, these striking results have many possible interpretations. However, it makes sense to think that at least some of the subjects in the study could be ambivalent toward the issues they were asked about and that this ambivalence could explain the result of the study in these cases. For instance, it makes sense to think that many people are de facto ambivalent with respect to the morality of prostitution. They may have opposing dispositions to answer the thorny question of whether prostitution is morally right or wrong because they think that, from a certain perspective, it is permissible, while from another it is not. These people may give a “mostly agree” or a “mostly disagree” response to the interviewer, but, as the complementary response also crosses their minds, they do not notice that the response displayed in the sheet is not the one they gave.
“[A]nd shall endeavour to account for these differences from the most universal, established principles of morals” (1975; 334). Note one minor point here: We call Hume “pluralist” because he grants that there are several acceptable moral codes. This is not pluralism in the sense we have defined. But, pluralism in the above sense implies pluralism in the second, defined, sense: see fn. 11 below.
See Abramson (1999). In this paper, Abramson deals with Hume’s alleged relativism. She picks up A Dialogue and tells us that the debate concerning the Dialogue’s discussion of cultural conflicts of values has been solely focused on the issue of whether Hume was or was a not a relativist. For us, A Dialogue is good evidence that Hume was an objectivist pluralist (see Arrieta and Vicente 2013).
“Badly tractable” because it requires that we are able to identify acceptable moralities first.
To say that there is a plurality of acceptable morals is not, as such, to say that two different, even opposing, courses of action can be acceptable, that is, thesis (ii) is not strictly identical to (objectivist) pluralism in the sense we have defined it. However, thesis (ii) clearly implies pluralism in our sense, and objectivist pluralism implies (ii).
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Antonio Casado da Rocha, Manuel Pérez Otero, and Dan Zeman, who provided very interesting comments to earlier versions of this paper. Thanks also to an anonymous referee provided by Acta Analytica, as well as to the editor of the journal, Danilo Suster. Funding for this paper was provided by Research Grants FFI 2014-52196-P and FF12010-20118 of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO).
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Vicente, A., Arrieta, A. Moral Ambivalence, Relativism, and Pluralism. Acta Anal 31, 207–223 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-015-0275-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-015-0275-7