Can Objective Morality be Subjectively Perceived?

The Objection

One objection I’ve seen to objective morality on the internet, in one form or another, goes something like this: we use subjectively experienced intuition to believe in objective morality. This, somehow, is supposed to argue against objective morality or at least our justification for it. If belief in objective morality relies on subjective intuition, how can morality be objective if it’s subjectively perceived? Doesn’t the fact that supposedly objective morality is subjectively perceived mean we don’t really have any justification for accepting moral objectivism?

The answer to both questions is, “No.”

Responses

First, note that in practice, everything we know about is subjectively perceived; our own perceptions (intuitive and sensory) are all we have to go on. Yes, we can ask other people to see if they share our experiences, but the perception that there even are other people relies on, you guessed it, our own subjective experiences. At the end of the day, subjective experiences, i.e. the experiences of the self, are used to justify all of our beliefs. The fact that something is subjectively perceived thus doesn’t imply that it isn’t objectively real; e.g. my subjective experiences can report a tree existing with that tree being objectively real.

Second, some perceived truth being believed on the basis of subjectively experienced intuition doesn’t imply that the truth isn’t objective, even when people have disagreeing intuitions. If for example someone’s logic intuition told them there could be a married bachelor despite the self-contradiction, whereas your rational intuition says such a self-contradictory thing cannot exist, you’re still justified in believing that There can’t be any married bachelors is objectively true.

Or to use an example perhaps closer to real life, suppose a creationist and evolutionist look at the same data, but have differing intuitive perceptions about where that evidence points (the evolutionist thinks it’s evidence for evolution, the creationist disagrees). Does that mean there’s no objective fact of the matter about whether the data is evidence for evolution? Clearly not. Disagreeing, subjectively experienced intuitions do not imply that the intuitively perceived truths are not objective, nor do such disagreeing intuitions imply that we can’t be justified in believing them to be objectively true.

How?

So how do confused objections like, “Morality is subjectively perceived, so it’s not objective” arise? Perhaps one reason for the confusion is a conflation between moral epistemology (how moral truths are known) with moral ontology (the reality of morality; e.g. whether it’s objective or subjective). The moral epistemology may, in one sense, be subjective. But it doesn’t follow that the moral truths themselves are not objective.

A Quick Argument for Objective Morality

Here’s a quick deductive argument for moral objectivism, where by moral truths being “objective” I mean that they hold independently of human opinion.

The Argument

1. It is morally wrong for a man to torture an infant just for fun.
2. It would remain morally wrong to torture an infant just for fun even if a baby torturer thought otherwise and killed everyone who didn’t agree with him.
3. If (1) and (2) are true, then objective morality exists.
4. Therefore, objective morality exists.

The justification for premise (3) is that once we accept the truth of (1) and (2) it leads to moral objectivism via this step-by-step reasoning:

1. In the thought experiment of premise (2), something remains morally wrong even when all human opinion thinks otherwise (since the torturer killed off everyone who doesn’t agree with him);
2. in which case the moral truth “It’s morally wrong for a man to torture infants just for fun” would be holding despite human opinion;
3. in which case it seems we have an example of an objective moral truth (i.e., holding true independently of human opinion) thereby giving us objective morality.

If (a), (b), and (c) are all true as they seem to be, then we have an example of an objective moral truth. (For those who disagree, do you disagree with (a), (b), or (c)? If so, which one(s)?)

You could deny premise (1). Do you believe there’s nothing morally wrong with torturing infants just for fun?

You could bite the bullet and deny premise (2), say it’s not morally wrong for a man to torture infants just for fun as long as he believes otherwise and kills everyone who doesn’t with him. Do you think that’s a reasonable belief?

Why I Like It

I think this is a good deductive argument for moral objectivism because it quickly reveals how intellectually pricey it is to deny objective morality. It’s not reasonable to believe that there’s nothing morally wrong with torturing infants just for fun, so premise (1) is not plausibly false. Likewise, it’s not reasonable to believe that it’s not morally wrong for a man to torture infants just for fun as long as he believes otherwise and kills everyone who doesn’t agree with him; so premise (2) is not plausibly false.

This forces the disbeliever of moral objectivism in a very intellectually uncomfortable position, especially in a debate, because even if the disbeliever is willing to bite a bullet and reject a premise, most people won’t find the disbeliever’s premise rejection tenable.

The Argument from Moral Knowledge

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Moral epistemology asks questions like, “How do we know our moral beliefs are true?” and it’s a question that helps theism. What I’ll call “the argument from moral knowledge” tries to use moral knowledge as an argument for God’s existence. Thus a variety of the argument from moral knowledge goes like this:

1. If God does not exist, then moral knowledge does not exist.
2. Moral knowledge does exist (e.g. we know it’s morally wrong to torture infants just for fun).
3. Therefore, God exists.

Where warrant is that stuff we add to true belief to get knowledge (for example, the warrant for belief might be some type of evidence or justification for that belief), this argument claims that if God does not exist then our belief in morality’s existence is not warranted.

Defining Morality

Since I’ve seen some nontheists redefine morality to avoid some of the problems atheism has with morality as it’s ordinarily defined, I’ll briefly sketch what I mean by “morality” in this argument from moral knowledge. Morality has an “ought” component to it (e.g. moral obligations) but there are a couple different senses of the word “ought.” By “descriptive ought” I mean that type of ought that is nothing more than some purely descriptive state of affairs, e.g. “If you want to do well in school, you ought to study” meaning something like “As a matter of practical necessity, you need to study to do well in school.” A descriptive ought is any ought that has no properties besides purely descriptive ones. By “prescriptive ought” I mean that type of ought that is not a descriptive ought; it prescribes and is not purely descriptive, e.g. “You should not to torture infants just for fun.” The type of morality being referred to here involves the prescriptive ought, e.g. moral wrongness. An action is morally wrong for someone only if they ought not to do it in the “prescriptive ought” sense.

Moral oughts being prescriptive oughts is important because it means that moral facts and properties are, if not supernatural, at least non-natural. There is a scholarly article that fairly rigorously demonstrates that moral ought facts are non-natural when using prescriptive oughts, but here I will give an oversimplified version of the argument. Natural facts are facts that can be expressed entirely in the language of psychology and the natural sciences, e.g. “The atomic number of gold is 79” and “Bob needs an anesthetic to not feel pain.” (Caveat: don’t confuse the natural fact with the statement used to express what the natural fact is.) The language of psychology and the natural sciences is purely descriptive language, and thus what natural facts are can be stated entirely in descriptive language. But moral oughtness is not purely descriptive, i.e. what moral oughtness is cannot be stated entirely in descriptive language (it is false that moral oughts have no properties besides purely descriptive ones). Since natural facts are purely descriptive whereas moral ought facts are not, moral ought facts are not natural facts, and thus however morality exists, it does not exist as solely part of the natural realm; e.g. moral wrongness is nonphysical and non-natural. We can summarize the reasoning (which is an oversimplified version of this semantics argument for moral non-naturalism, and the math for that paper is explained here) as follows:

4. All natural facts are purely descriptive (they can be stated entirely in descriptive language).
5. Moral ought facts are not purely descriptive (it is false that moral oughts have no properties besides purely descriptive ones).
6. Therefore, moral ought facts are not natural facts.

The above argument is deductively valid, i.e. the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises by the rules of logic, and symbolic logic proves this.[1]

Morality is Empirically Undetectable and Causally Inert

Another indication that moral properties are non-natural is their empirical undetectability and causal inertness, at least barring the supernatural. Moral properties are non-natural, and anything outside the natural world causally affecting stuff would by definition be supernatural; thus moral properties are causally inert barring anything supernatural. To illustrate what I mean by moral oughtness being empirically undetectable, imagine a moral nihilist (who disbelieves in moral oughtness) and a moral realist (who believes in moral oughtness) observe some jerk kicking a dog just for fun; the dog whimpers in pain and runs away. Both agree on all physiological and psychological facts, e.g. that the dog felt pain and suffered minor injury. The moral nihilist says, “I don’t think moral oughtness (like moral wrongness) is attached to that action.” The moral realist says, “I think moral oughtness (moral wrongness) is attached to that action.”

There is no empirical way to determine who is right here. Both views agree on all the same empirically observable facts, and moral oughtness being associated with certain physical facts (such as the dog’s injury) doesn’t explain any physical fact. Moral realism and moral nihilism are empirically indistinguishable from each other, though since moral oughtness is non-natural and nonphysical, it isn’t surprising that both the moral realist and the moral nihilist would agree on all the same physical facts.

The dog kicker scenario also illustrates that moral oughtness is causally inert, at least barring the supernatural. Moral oughtness is non-natural and nonphysical, and something non-natural and nonphysical causally influencing the natural, physical realm would be supernatural. Notice also that whether moral oughtness is associated with natural facts (e.g. the dog’s pain and injury) or not associated with those same natural facts, the physical conditions are the same in both cases, and so barring the supernatural, the presence or absence of moral oughtness would make no causal difference as to what those physical conditions will result in.

Moral Awareness

But if moral properties like moral wrongness are empirically undetectable and causally inert (barring the supernatural) how in the world are we aware of morality? Since morality is empirically undetectable, in practice we have to rely on intuition, i.e. it just seems true to us that morality exists[2], similar to how it just seems true to us that the external world is real (as opposed to being something like a dream). But if we have to rely on moral intuition to justify our belief in morality, how does moral intuition deliver warrant for morality’s existence?

Theism has a straightforward explanation: God, wanting humans to have moral knowledge, designed our cognitive faculties (via evolution or otherwise) in such a way that when they are functioning properly we intuitively apprehend basic moral truths, just as we intuitively apprehend elementary truths of logic and arithmetic. Our moral awareness thus becomes a kind of God-given intuitive knowledge.

In contrast, atheism faces real trouble. Moral properties are causally inert in the absence of the supernatural, and because on atheism it is unlikely that supernatural intervention is responsible for our moral knowledge (e.g. supernatural clairvoyance seems far-fetched), it is likely that moral oughtness is causally inert if atheism is true, at least with respect to moral knowledge. On atheism, we have the intuition of morality’s existence because that’s what our brains give us, and moral oughtness being causally inert means its presence or absence would make no causal difference as to whether our brains would give us this moral intuition (nor would it make any causal difference to the evolutionary and environmental processes that gave us our brains). But if on atheism we’d have the intuition of morality existing even if morality did not exist, then it seems we wouldn’t know that morality exists.

To illustrate why, suppose a cyborg knows she has a metal-detecting implant installed in her brain that’s designed so that when a widget is in her hand, the implant delivers a strong intuition that the widget contains metal if and only if it contains metal. Suppose however the metal-detecting implant malfunctions such that it would deliver the intuition that the widget contains metal regardless of whether the widget contained metal. Then even if the widget in her hand did contain metal and she believed it contained metal on the basis of her intuition, her belief wouldn’t count as knowledge. Moreover, if she learned the metal-detecting implant would give her the intuition that the widget contains metal regardless of whether the widget contained metal, she would no longer have adequate grounds to believe the widget contains metal.

In the cyborg scenario (whereby the implant supplies the intuition that the widget contains metal regardless of whether such metal existed), the cyborg’s intuition clearly does not deliver warrant for the metallic widget belief. Similarly, on the “atheism scenario,” whereby atheism is true and our brains would supply moral intuition regardless of whether morality existed, our moral intuition would not deliver warrant for morality’s existence. But since we rely on moral intuition to justify our belief in morality’s existence, it seems that if atheism is true we are not warranted in believing that morality exists. We can summarize the reasoning in two steps. The first:

7. In the cyborg scenario, the cyborg’s intuition does not deliver warrant for the metallic widget belief.
8. If the cyborg’s intuition does not deliver warrant in the cyborg scenario, then if atheism is true moral intuition does not deliver warrant for morality’s existence. (No relevant difference seems to exist between the cyborg scenario and the atheism scenario whereby the cyborg’s intuition would not deliver warrant but moral intuition would in the atheism scenario.)
9. Therefore, if atheism is true, moral intuition does not deliver warrant for morality’s existence.

With If atheism is true, moral intuition does not deliver warrant for morality’s existence argued for, we are ready for the second argument:

9. If atheism is true, moral intuition does not deliver warrant for morality’s existence.
10. We rely on moral intuition to believe that morality exists, such that If moral intuition does not deliver warrant for morality’s existence, we are not warranted in believing that morality exists is true.
11. Therefore, if atheism is true, we are not warranted in believing that morality exists.

It seems then we have good grounds for affirming the first premise of the argument from moral knowledge:

1. If God does not exist, then moral knowledge does not exist.
2. Moral knowledge does exist (e.g. we know it’s morally wrong to torture infants just for fun).
3. Therefore, God exists.

Our awareness of morality’s existence thus seems to provide evidence for theism.

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[1] For philosophy nerds (and all philosophy nerds should be sufficiently versed in symbolic logic) here’s the symbolization key:

• Nx = x is a natural fact
• Dx = x is purely descriptive
• Mx = x is a moral ought fact

The goal is to prove ¬∃x[Mx ∧ Nx], i.e. that there does not exist a moral ought fact that is also a natural fact, from premises (1) and (2) in the argument below:

1. ∀x[Nx → Dx]
2. ∀x[Mx → ¬Dx]

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3. ∃x[Mx ∧ Nx] indirect proof assumption

4. Mf ∧ Nf 3, existential instantiation
5. Mf 4, conjunction elimination
6. Nf 4, conjunction elimination
7. Nf → Df 1, universal instantiation
8. Df 6, 7, modus ponens
9. Mf → ¬Df 2, universal instantiation
10. ¬Df 5, 9, modus ponens
11. Df ∧ ¬Df 8, 10, conjunction introduction

12. ¬∃x[Mx ∧ Nx] 3-11, indirect proof

[2] I don’t mean to imply that moral intuition necessarily gives us knowledge of morality’s existence by directly telling us that morality exists (though I don’t rule it out either). It could also be, for example, that we intuit a moral truth like, “It is morally wrong for a man to torture innocent sentient life just for fun” and from there we conclude that morality exists.

Redefining Morality

In my first live oral debate (available on YouTube) my interlocutor and I debated the truth of the first premise of this moral argument:

1. If God doesn’t exist, then objective morality doesn’t exist.
2. Objective morality does exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

In my opening statement (1:31 to 11:57) I argue that objective morality probably doesn’t exist if atheism is true. My interlocutor got around the problem by redefining “morality,” but why would anyone do that?

The Problem

One reason a nontheist might redefine morality is that there’s a huge problem atheism has with objective morality, and in particular objective moral oughtness. Oughtness is a crucial part of morality; an action is morally wrong for someone only if they ought not to do it. So without moral oughtness nothing is morally wrong, not even torturing infants just for fun. Moral objectivism says moral truths hold independently of whether we think they do, e.g. it’s morally wrong for us to torture infants just for fun even if we believe otherwise. On a theistic worldview, it makes perfect sense that there’d be some component of reality transcending our opinion that says we shouldn’t do certain things, but let’s suppose atheism is true.

On atheism objective moral oughtness is pretty strange when you think about it; it’s invisible, nonphysical, and empirically undetectable. So why shouldn’t the consistent atheist reject the existence of this invisible nonphysical thing that cannot be empirically detected, if this atheist is to reject the existence of invisible nonphysical deities that have not been empirically detected? Given atheism, it seems more likely that people’s belief in moral oughtness is a delusion brought about by evolution to get us to behave in certain ways and help our species survive. Given atheism, moral oughtness probably doesn’t exist.

Suppose the atheist is willing to bite the bullet and say, “OK, I think moral oughtness is a delusion brought about by evolution to get us to behave in certain ways, and so nothing is actually morally wrong, not even torturing infants just for fun.” But one has to ask themselves, which is more plausible: that there’s something morally wrong with torturing an infant just for fun, or atheism? There are atheists who would sooner believe that there’s nothing wrong with torturing an infant just for fun than abandon atheism, but by my lights that level of irrationality is akin to religious fanaticism.

Some atheists don’t want to say, “I don’t see anything wrong with torturing infants just for fun,” since that makes them look like kind of crazy, and yet some of these very same atheists want to affirm atheism. One way to dodge the problem—or at least avoid thinking about the real problem—is to redefine morality so that a term like “moral wrongness” refers to something that is far more compatible with atheism than what most people mean by “moral wrongness.” It sounds crazy but there’s kind of a logic to it, starting with how one defines the word “ought.”

Redefining Morality

In the English language we use “oughts” in a couple different ways. One way is what philosophers call the hypothetical imperative, and 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant says the hypothetical imperative represents the “practical necessity of a possible action as means to something else.” For example, a statement like, “If you want to live, you ought to breathe” might mean something like, “As a matter of practical necessity, you need to breathe to live.” Here the “ought” is conditioned upon some particular goal or purpose (breathing) and thus has a purely descriptive meaning, viz. describing what you need to do as a matter of practical necessity to achieve some goal. Philosophers call these oughts “conditional oughts” or “hypothetical oughts” (since they are the oughts of hypothetical imperatives). We can define “descriptive ought” as any ought that is nothing more than some purely descriptive state of affairs (hypothetical oughts are an obvious example, but one could theoretically come up with some other purely descriptive meaning for the word “ought”).

On the other hand, there’s another type of ought as in “You ought not to torture infants just for fun” where the “ought” is not a shorthand for some purely descriptive meaning; torturing infants just for fun is something you just ought not to do, period. We can call this type of ought the prescriptive ought or the unconditional ought. This type of ought is (a) prescriptive; and (b) is not a descriptive ought (and is thus not identical to some purely descriptive state of affairs). Unless otherwise specified, when I use terms like “should” or “ought” in this article I’ll be using the prescriptive ought.

The type of “ought” morality has in mind is the “prescriptive ought.” For some atheists unwilling to bite the bullet of moral nihilism (the view that says there is no moral ought and nothing is morally wrong) this can produce cognitive dissonance. They want to believe atheism, yet on atheism, the prescriptive ought probably doesn’t exist, and you’d look pretty crazy if you said nothing is morally wrong, not even torturing infants just for fun. For these atheists who want to affirm atheism but also want to affirm that torturing infants just for fun is morally wrong, what’s an atheist to do?

Proposal: redefine the word “morality” to not have that troublesome “ought” component. That way one say “torturing infants just for fun is morally wrong” while affirming atheism.

Problem: part of what we mean when we say an action is morally wrong for someone is that they ought not to do it. Moral wrongness without the “ought” isn’t real moral wrongness.

Solution: redefine “ought”! Redefine the moral ought so that “ought” is a shorthand for some purely descriptive meaning. That way it’s empirically detectable and not quite so metaphysical.

Problem: most people have the prescriptive ought in mind when they think of moral wrongness. So what’s an atheist to do?

Solution: don’t accept that most people have the prescriptive ought in mind when they think of moral oughtness (as by remaining agnostic about it or by thinking that most people probably don’t have the prescriptive ought in mind when thinking of moral wrongness).

Through such mental gymnastics, an atheist can happily affirm morality’s existence without that troublesome prescriptive ought. Such rationalization might seem incredible, but it happened in my first live oral debate! My interlocutor redefined morality so that it doesn’t have the unconditional ought, and he actually denied that most people have the prescriptive ought in mind with respect to moral prohibitions.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen an atheist engage in this sort of rationalization, and I think a lot of other atheists do it also—not in the sense that they use terms like “conditional ought” and “unconditional ought,” but in the sense of recognizing (on some level) that the prescriptive sort of ought probably doesn’t exist if atheism is true and so they redefine morality to use the descriptive ought instead. These atheists are potentially oblivious to the fact that most use the prescriptive ought when thinking of moral wrongness.

For the most part, I don’t think that atheists who do this are doing this consciously; I think it’s more like a psychological defense mechanism. Atheists don’t want to appear horrendously irrational so they convince themselves, “Yes, I can say on atheism torturing infants just for fun is morally wrong,” and they tell other people they believe it’s morally wrong even though they really don’t. These atheists are what I call “stealth moral nihilists” in that they claim to believe in moral wrongness but they really don’t since they reject the prescriptive ought and redefine terms like “moral wrongness” so that they have a purely descriptive meaning, e.g. an atheist could redefine “moral wrongness” to mean something like, “an action that negatively affects the well-being of a conscious creature unnecessarily.”[1] Such redefinitions often have a grain of truth; “harming the well-being of conscious creatures unnecessarily” is often morally wrong, but without the “we ought not to do that” element, it isn’t real moral wrongness.

Conclusion

I want to reiterate that for the most part, I don’t think that atheists who do this are doing this consciously; I think it’s more like a psychological defense mechanism. It needn’t be the case that a stealth moral nihilist is consciously and deliberately lying when they say they believe in moral wrongness. They are quite potentially oblivious to the fact that most people use the prescriptive ought vis-à-vis moral wrongness. The nontheist I debated in my first live oral debate was neither the first nor the last stealth moral nihilist I encountered when talking about the moral argument. If you discuss the moral argument with a nontheist and the nontheist claims to accept objective morality, it might behoove you to define the sort of “ought” you have in mind and make sure dealing with a stealth moral nihilist.

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[1] There’s a problem of vagueness for defining “moral wrongness” as “an action that negatively affects the well-being of a conscious creature unnecessarily.” What makes an action necessary or unnecessary? Necessary for what purpose?

Moral relativism

Home > Philosophy > Ethics and Morality

In this article I’ll be talking about moral relativism, the idea that moral truths are relative to some human opinion frame of reference (as to an individual’s opinion or society’s opinion) as opposed to moral objectivism which says there are moral truths that hold independently of human opinion. Moral relativism recognizes the existence of moral obligations but denies that moral obligations are objective. Both moral objectivism and moral relativism contrast with moral nihilism which says moral obligations do not exist and nothing is morally wrong, not even torturing infants just for fun. In this article I’ll focus on moral relativism and argue that moral relativism faces severe rationality problems.

Moral Objectivism

One way to argue for moral objectivism is to point out at least one objective moral truth, e.g. at least one example of an objectively morally wrong action, whereby an action is morally wrong for someone only if they have a moral obligation not to do it. Ask yourself this question: is it morally wrong for a man to torture infants just for fun and would it remain morally wrong even if some baby torturer thought otherwise and killed everyone who disagreed with him (assuming infants were not yet capable of forming moral beliefs)? If so, then it seems you embrace moral objectivism, because that would be a case where something is morally wrong even when all human opinion says otherwise (since the baby torturer killed all who disagreed with him). So if torturing infants just for fun would be morally wrong in that scenario where all human opinion says it is not morally wrong, this suggests that moral objectivism is true.

Examples of objective moral truths could be multiplied; e.g. suppose some homophobic bigot liked to torture innocent lesbians just because of their sexual orientation and he killed or brainwashed all who disagreed with him; would his violent homophobic bigotry be morally wrong? If so, then we have another example of an objective moral truth, since the torturer’s homophobic bigotry would remain wrong even in the situation where all human opinion says otherwise. One could adopt a “bite the bullet” approach and say that e.g. there’s nothing wrong with torturing infants just for fun as long as you think so and kill everyone who thinks otherwise, but this view seems horrendously implausible (at least by my lights). Even apart from the arguments for moral objectivism though, moral relativism has serious problems.

Coherent Moral Relativism

First I’ll start with the coherent forms of moral relativism; these are the forms of relativism that, while they are mistaken, at least have the benefit of being logically coherent. Moral relativism says that moral truths, including those of moral obligations, are relative to some frame of reference.

One view of moral relativism which I’ll call cultural relativism (which goes by various other names, such as conventional ethical relativism and conventionalism) says the frame of reference is the culture, such that if a given culture believes a moral truth (say, an action being morally good, bad, right, wrong, etc.) this makes it true for them, but their belief in the truth is not binding on other cultures who think differently. For example, if culture N believe that exterminating the Jews is morally permissible, then it becomes morally permissible for that culture to do it. If our culture says it is not permissible, then it is not permissible for people in our culture to do, but this judgment is not binding on culture N, and so as long as culture N believes it is morally permissible, then they’re not doing anything morally wrong in trying to exterminate the Jews as long as they believe there is nothing morally wrong with it. Yet, it seems that a society committing anti-Semitic genocide would be doing something they morally shouldn’t do even if they thought otherwise, and if that’s the case, then cultural relativism is false.

Another version of moral relativism called ethical subjectivism (which also goes by various names, e.g. subjective ethical relativism) places the frame of reference on the individual, and says that the individual believing an action to be morally right/wrong/good/bad/etc. makes that action morally right/wrong/good/bad/etc. for that person. So if Adolph thinks that torturing infants just for fun is morally obligatory, then Adolph is morally obligated to do it. If Oskar believes torturing infants just for fun is morally wrong, then it is wrong for Oskar to do it. Under ethical subjectivism, Oskar can believe it is wrong for Adolph to torture infants just for fun, but that belief would be mistaken because Adolph thinks otherwise, and so on ethical subjectivism Adolph has a moral duty to torture infants just for fun. Yet it seems Adolph would indeed be doing something morally wrong in torturing infants just for fun, and if that’s the case then ethical subjectivism is false.

You might have noticed that in the case of ethical subjectivism, Oskar is not allowed to “encroach” upon Adolph’s frame of reference to declare that torturing infants just for fun is wrong for Adolph and not just for Oskar. Instead, Oskar’s belief about it being morally wrong to torture infants just for fun is confined to his own frame of reference: himself. On ethical subjectivism, Adolph’s view is more valid than Oskar’s with respect to whether Adolph should torture infants just for fun. A similar principle holds for cultural relativism; belief’s about moral truths stay within the culture’s frame of reference (the culture) and don’t encroach upon another’s. Now let’s consider a form of moral relativism that allows one to encroach upon another frame of reference: where Oskar thinks is morally wrong for Adolph to torture infants just for fun, Adolph thinks otherwise, and they are both right, with neither side being more valid than the other with respect to whether Adolph should torture infants just for fun (in contrast to ethical subjectivism). Let’s call this encroachment relativism.

Incoherent Moral Relativism

It’s understandable then why someone might want to reject both ethical subjectivism and cultural relativism; who wants to say that e.g. it is morally obligatory for Adolph to torture infants just for fun? That wouldn’t make for a very plausible system of ethics. Ethical subjectivism doesn’t allow you to correctly claim that another individual’s ethical views are mistaken. Likewise, cultural relativism doesn’t allow one to correctly claim that another culture’s ethical views are mistaken. Both forms of moral relativism forbid this sort of encroachment upon people’s views.

Enter something I’ll call encroachment relativism, which does allow one to do this. The problem with this, as I’ll show shortly, is that this form of moral relativism is logically incoherent. To illustrate why, consider the following scenario. Suppose Oskar thinks it is morally wrong for Adolph to torture infants just for fun, whereas Adolph and his culture think Adolph has a moral obligation to torture infants just for fun. Ethical subjectivism may be implausible, but it at least provides a logically coherent answer to “Should Adolph torture infants?” with the answer being “Yes,” because on ethical subjectivism Adolph’s view is more valid than Oskar’s with respect to that question (something similar also applies to cultural relativism). With that in mind, consider what cultural relativism, ethical subjectivism, and encroachment relativism have to say about this scenario:

View	Moral obligation exists for Adolph?	Should Adolph torture infants just for fun?
Cultural relativism	Yes	Yes
Ethical subjectivism	Yes	Yes
Encroachment relativism	Yes	*

* In Adolph’s frame of reference, Adolph should not torture infants just for fun is true, and in Oskar’s frame of reference, Adolph should not torture infants just for fun is false (Oskar believes Adolph is morally obligated to not torture infants just for fun), with Oskar’s view being no more valid than Adolph’s and vice versa.

It’s important to remember that on ethical relativism, moral obligations exist, even for Adolph in this example. One objection to cultural relativism and ethical subjectivism is that if this Adolph-and-Oskar scenario occurred, it would not be the case that Adolph should torture infants just for fun, and if so these two forms of ethical relativism are mistaken.

But what about encroachment relativism? If encroachment relativism is true, should Adolph torture infants just for fun? Adolph thinks he should, Oskar thinks Adolph shouldn’t, and, according to encroachment relativism, neither person’s view is more valid than the other’s. But then encroachment relativism, unlike ethical subjectivism, cannot provide any logically coherent answer as to what Adolph should do. Perhaps it can reiterate the beliefs of the people about what Adolph should do but it cannot give a logically coherent answer to the question.

To drive the point home further, imagine that Oskar is an encroachment relativist who is incapable of lying and dodging questions. Now suppose Adolph says this to Oskar:

I think I understand encroachment relativism, but I’m not sure. I believe in encroachment relativism but I am also looking for a meaningful and coherent guide of behavior for me about what I should do. I believe torturing infants just for fun is morally obligatory. But if encroachment relativism is true, should I do it?

What answer can Oskar give to Adolph’s question? Oskar can’t say “Yes” because Oskar believes Adolph shouldn’t do it. Yet Oskar also can’t say “No” because Adolph believes Adolph should do it, and Oskar’s view is no more valid than Adolph’s. Encroachment relativism cannot provide any logically coherent answer for what Adolph ought to do here, and if there is no logically coherent answer for what Adolph morally ought to do, then Adolph doesn’t really have any moral obligations, and so encroachment relativism ironically implies that Adolph doesn’t really have any moral obligations. But encroachment relativism says Adolph does have a moral obligation (see the table above), and so encroachment relativism generates a self-contradiction: Adolph both does and does not have a moral obligation. Encroachment relativism is thus logically incoherent. We can structure this line of reasoning as follows:

1. If encroachment relativism is true, then there is no logically coherent answer for what Adolph morally ought to do (vis-à-vis torturing infants just for fun).
2. If there is no logically coherent answer for what Adolph morally ought to do, then Adolph has no moral obligation.
3. Therefore, if encroachment relativism is true, then Adolph has no moral obligation (from 1 and 2).
4. But if encroachment relativism is true, Adolph does have a moral obligation.
5. Therefore, encroachment relativism is false due to being logically incoherent; Adolph both does and does not have a moral obligation if encroachment relativism is true (from 3 and 4).

Because encroachment relativism implies there is no logically coherent answer for what Adolph morally ought to do in this case (Oskar’s answer is no more valid than Adolph’s and vice versa), this implies that Adolph doesn’t really have any moral obligations. This generates a logical incoherency that renders encroachment relativism logically incoherent. I haven’t seen any professional philosophers argue for encroachment relativism, perhaps because its logical incoherency is fairly evident to the philosophically sophisticated and so no philosopher worth her salt would accept it. Still, I’ve seen a number of laypersons accept this kind of logically incoherent moral relativism, and so I thought it worth mentioning.

Conclusion

A good example supports moral objectivism: it is morally wrong for a man to torture infants just for fun and would it remain morally wrong even if some baby torturer thought otherwise and killed everyone who disagreed with him. In that scenario all human opinion says it isn’t morally wrong to torture infants just for fun, and so if such torture would remain morally wrong even in that scenario, this suggests moral objectivism is true. The baby torturers should not torture infants just for fun even if they think otherwise and even if they kill everyone who disagrees with them. Moral objectivism is thus quite plausible.

In contrast, moral relativism is highly implausible. Cultural relativism (morality is relative to the culture) implies that genocidal anti-Semitism is morally obligatory if the culture believes it; ethical subjectivism implies that torturing infants just for fun is morally obligatory if the baby torturer believes it. Neither variety of ethical relativism is plausible.

Encroachment relativism isn’t merely implausible; it is logically incoherent. Encroachment relativism says e.g. Oskar thinks is morally wrong for Adolph to torture infants just for fun, Adolph thinks otherwise, and they are both right, with neither side being more valid than the other. Encroachment relativism implies there is no logically coherent answer for what Adolph morally ought to do (Oskar’s answer is no more valid than Adolph’s and vice versa), which implies that Adolph doesn’t really have any moral obligations, even though encroachment relativism does say a moral obligation exists for Adolph here. This generates a logical incoherency that renders encroachment relativism logically incoherent.

If one is to be a moral relativist, one should at least avoid forms of moral relativism that are logically incoherent. Also if one is to be a moral relativist, one ought to be aware of the intellectual ramifications of their view, e.g. a cultural relativist should be aware that a society believing genocidal anti-Semitism to be morally right makes it morally right for that culture, even if the cultural relativist thinks such genocide is morally abhorrent. Yet it seems to me that the implications of moral relativism render moral relativism horrendously implausible, and I think moral objectivism is the only viable, rational option.

Denying Both Premises of the Moral Argument

Behold the deductive moral argument (or at least one variety of it):

1. If God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist.
2. Objective morality does exist.

I’ve seen a number of atheists claim both premises to be false. In this article I’ll give an informal proof to explain why that is impossible.

In a way this article is redundant, since I gave a formal proof for the falsity of both premises being logically impossible in part 2 of my introductory logic series, with part 2 also explaining the basic symbolic logic and various rules of logic needed to understand the proof (thus it isn’t necessary to read introductory logic part 1 to understand the proof, though it wouldn’t hurt either). So what inspired me to write this article to present a more informal proof?

Inspiration

In one Facebook dialogue somebody denied both premises. I said it was logically impossible for both premises to be false, and gave a link that had the proof of this in symbolic logic while noting, “If you’re not well-versed in formal logic, not to worry, because the article gives a crash course of some symbolic logic rules.” His first response to this was to ignore the proof entirely while saying there is “no reason” why one can’t reject both premises. I pressed further to get him to respond to the logical argument against both premises being false, but he seemed to have little motivation to learn the logic and understand the objection (judging from e.g. him saying “I will attempt to go back over this at some point, but I really have very little motivation to do so”). It’s this sort of behavior that tempts me to embrace the stereotype of atheists being irrational and giving lip service to logic while in reality having little real interest in learning it (at least when they discover it might be used against them).

But that’s a temptation I’m going to resist. I realize my articles introducing logic require a bigger time investment than reading a 100-word Facebook post, and that not everybody is interested in learning formal logic despite the benefits of doing so (e.g. helping one to think more logically). So in this post I’m going to distill some of the reasons of the logical proof in plain English.

Understanding the First Premise

For brevity’s sake I’ll abbreviate “objective morality” as OM. By morality being objective I mean that moral truths hold independently of human belief and perception of them (this matches closely with how “objective morality” is often defined in the context of the moral argument[1]). Behold the first premise:

1. If God does not exist, then OM does not exist.

Among the bad objections against the moral argument are straw men and red herring fallacies against the first premise. So to help prevent that, I’ll note what the first premise is not saying. It is not saying that God grounds morality—even some atheists agree with the first premise and they don’t believe God grounds anything. Nor is the first premise saying it is impossible for OM to exist in the absence of God; it merely says it isn’t the case that OM exists without God.

If it’s hard to see why that would be true here’s another way to look at the first premise. It is important to understand that whether we should believe an if-then statement often depends on the background information we possess, e.g. If it rained heavily in the last five minutes, then Sam’s car is wet depends on factors like whether Sam’s car is in a garage. Similarly, if you believe this equation is true…

God does not exist + background info = OM does not exist

…then you believe If God does not exist, then OM does not exist and to think otherwise is to misunderstand the meaning of the first premise. The first premise is not saying it is impossible for OM to exist without God, only that given the facts of the real world we are in OM does not exist if God does not exist.

The Proof

Let =entails⇒ signify “entails (by the rules of logic).” For example:

I have a hand and I have a leg =entails⇒ I have a leg

The above is true thanks to a rule of logic known as simplification (which I explain in introductory logic part 1).

A very important fact in the proof is this: if the following is true….

God does not exist + background info =entails⇒ OM does not exist

…then the first premise is true, and to think otherwise is to misunderstand the meaning of the first premise.

Now suppose we know the second premise to be false, i.e. OM does not exist is part of our background info. Then the first premise would be true because we’d get this:

God does not exist + background info

    =entails⇒ God does not exist and OM does not exist

    =entails⇒ OM does not exist

And thus the following entailment would be true:

God does not exist + background info =entails⇒ OM does not exist

Which would mean that the first premise is true. Once we accept OM does not exist as part of our background info, it inevitably leads to the above entailment and thus to the first premise. Thus it is logically impossible for both premises to be false, because the falsity of the second premise (OM does not exist) entails the truth of the first premise.

It is also worth noting that God, as traditionally conceived, entails the existence of objective moral values; God is morally good, and is good independently of whether humans believe him to be so, e.g. God was morally good prior to humans existing. Thus, God entails objective morality existing.

Conclusion

Whether we should believe an if-then statement often depends on the background information we possess, e.g. If it rained heavily in the last five minutes, then Sam’s car is wet depends on factors like whether Sam’s car is in a garage. Similarly, when interpreted correctly the first premise is saying that given the facts of the real world we are in, it is not the case that OM exists if God does not exist. Thus if you believe the following entailment to be true…

God does not exist + background info =entails⇒ OM does not exist

…then you believe If God does not exist, then OM does not exist is true, and to think otherwise is to misunderstand the meaning of the first premise. So if you’re an atheist who denies moral objectivism (and thus has OM does not exist as part of their background info) you accept the first premise, and to think otherwise is to misunderstand what the first premise means. In contrast, if God (a being who is morally good independently of human opinion) exists, objective morality exists.

Once we accept the falsity of the second premise (OM does not exist) as part of our background info, it inevitably leads to the above entailment and thus to the first premise. It is impossible for both premises to be false because the falsity of the second premise entails the truth of the first premise. All that is a bit rough, so if you want a rigorous formal proof for the logical impossibility of both premises I recommend reading part 2 of my introductory logic series.

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[1] A few examples:

1. Adams, Robert M. The Virtue of Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 105.
2. Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith, Third Edition (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2008), p. 173.
3. Peter Byrne’s article on the moral argument that used to be part of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

It is also worth considering that the Oxford Dictionary of English lists this as one of the definitions of objectivism, “[PHILOSOPHY] the belief that certain things, especially moral truths, exist independently of human knowledge or perception of them.” Thus on this definition moral objectivism would be the belief that moral truths exist independently of human knowledge or perception of them.

Pseudo-Relativism

Home > Philosophy > Ethics and Morality

This blog entry will be about attacking a position I’ll call “pseudo-relativism.” Although I address it in part 3 of my series on the moral argument, I thought it deserved its own entry since it seems I’ve seen it or something like it popping up often enough. What is pseudo-relativism? Suppose Adolph thinks that torturing infants just for fun is a morally right action for him and Oskar thinks that would be a morally wrong action for Adolph to do. Pseudo-relativism says that morality is relative in such a way that Oskar and Adolph are both right. Before attacking this view I’ll recap a few things about morality is and why someone might be motivated to accept pseudo-relativism.

The Motivation

To recap a few things about morality, an action is morally wrong for subject S only if S ought not to do it, and an action is morally right for subject S only if S ought to do it. Moral objectivism says that morality holds independently of human opinion. For example, a popular belief among moral objectivists is that torturing infants just for fun is morally wrong independently of whether we humans believe it to be so.

An atheist might want to reject moral objectivism on the grounds that if God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist, but finding an intellectually viable alternative to moral objectivism can be a bit tricky. One might balk at accepting “there is nothing morally wrong with knowingly torturing infants just for fun,” but to maintain that there is something morally wrong with torturing infants just for fun without accepting moral objectivism, one would have to accept some form of ethical relativism. Ethical relativism (or moral relativism) agrees with moral objectivism that morality exists but unlike moral objectivism says that moral truths are relative to human opinion. For example, a belief called cultural relativism (which goes by various other names, such as conventional ethical relativism and conventionalism) says that morality is relative to cultural opinion in such a way that the culture believing that a certain action is morally right/wrong/good/bad/etc. makes that action morally right/wrong/good/bad/etc. for that culture. If for instance a culture believed violent anti-Semitism to be morally right, then it becomes morally right for that culture to do it. Someone else might think the culture is doing something morally wrong, but such a person would be mistaken because the culture thinks it is morally right and that is enough to make it morally right for that culture.

Another version of moral relativism called ethical subjectivism (which also goes by various names, e.g. subjective ethical relativism) says that the individual believing an action to be morally right/wrong/good/bad/etc. makes that action morally right/wrong/good/bad/etc. for that person. So if Adolph thinks that killing Jews is morally obligatory, then it is morally right for Adolph to do it. If Oskar believes killing Jews is morally wrong, then it is wrong for Oskar to do it. Under ethical subjectivism, Oskar can believe it is wrong for Adolph to kill Jews, but that belief would be mistaken because Adolph thinks otherwise, and so on ethical subjectivism Adolph has a moral duty to kill Jews.

It’s understandable then why someone might want to reject both ethical subjectivism and cultural relativism; who wants to say that e.g. it is morally right for Adolph to kill Jews? That wouldn’t make for a very plausible system of ethics. Examples of unfavorable implications could be multiplied. If someone believed torturing infants just for fun is morally right and, after killing everyone who disagreed with him, he tortured infants for the sheer fun of it, then according to ethical subjectivism there is nothing morally wrong with the man torturing infants just for fun. If a community of men believed torturing infants just for fun was morally right and, after killing everyone who disagreed with them, they tortured infants for the sheer fun of it, cultural relativism says that there’s nothing morally wrong with such torture.

Help From Some (Painless) Symbolic Logic

Symbolic logic helps to get a view of the structure of the sort of arguments being used against ethical relativism. Some quick symbolic logic stuff:

English	Symbolic Logic
If p is true, then q is true	p → q
If p were true, then q would be true	p □→ q
Not-p (p is false)	¬p

That there is a difference between “If p is true, then q is true” and “If p were true, then q would true” can be revealed by observing that one can believe “If Oswald didn’t shoot Kennedy, someone else did” without believing “If Oswald didn’t shoot Kennedy, someone else would have.” A useful rule of logic:

modus tollens
In English	In Symbolic Logic
If p then q Not-q Therefore, not-p	p → q ¬q ∴ ¬p

The above arguments against the alternatives to moral objectivism take the following form, where P is some challenged proposition (e.g. “ethical subjectivism is true”), T denotes a thought experiment (e.g. a man who believes it is morally right to torture infants just for fun, does such torture, and has killed everyone who disagreed with him), and R denotes the questionable result of the thought experiment (e.g. the man torturing infants just for fun isn’t doing anything morally wrong):

1. P → (T □→ R)
2. ¬(T □→ R)

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3. ¬P 1, 2, modus tollens

The conclusion (line 3) follows logically and necessarily from the premises (lines 1 and 2) by the rules of logic, and thus for the conclusion to be false a premise must be false. Putting the argument in symbolic logic also helps see why certain objections don’t work. One could object saying that the state of affairs described in T (e.g. the man torturing infants just for fun believing it to be morally right after killing everyone who disagreed with him) has never happened and will never happen. That may be true, but such an objection doesn’t attack either premise of the argument, and if both premises are true the conclusion follows whether one likes it or not. One could also criticize the argument by noting that the state of affairs described in T is an extreme and contrived example. Maybe that’s true, but again that doesn’t attack any premise of the argument.

Consequently, it’s difficult to convincingly attack “If a man believed it was morally right to torture infants just for fun…” type arguments. One wants to avoid promoting an alternative with unacceptable consequences. One also wants to avoid the apparently unacceptable consequences of denying moral objectivism. For example, a quick case for moral objectivism could go like this:

Consider this hypothetical scenario. The only humans who ever existed are a community of men and infants, both of which are grown in a lab. To replace the men who die, the community creates fully grown men in the lab. Throughout all time, every human has agreed that both torturing infants just fun and killing them are morally right. The community of men grow infants in the lab and then torture them to death just for fun. As these men sadistically torture infants for the sheer fun of it, would this action be morally wrong in spite of their opinion to the contrary? Would that action be morally wrong independently of their opinion?

If the answer to both questions is “Yes” that would seem to suggest that there is at least one objective moral truth. To see why, first we can ask ourselves this question: would moral objectivism be true in that scenario? If the scenario were actualized, every existing human’s opinion would be that the act of torturing infants just for fun is morally right, and so for that action to be morally wrong regardless of their opinion, it would have to be morally wrong regardless of any human opinion that exists (bear in mind we are talking about human opinions that exist in this scenario). But if in that scenario the action’s moral wrongness would hold independently of any existing human opinion, the only way to prevent the action’s moral wrongness from holding independently of all human opinion in that scenario is if the action’s moral wrongness were somehow dependent on nonexistent human opinion, which doesn’t seem very plausible. Since in that scenario the action’s moral wrongness would hold independently of human opinion, moral objectivism (a moral property existing independently of human opinion) would be true in that scenario. Yet if in this scenario the moral wrongness of torturing infants just for fun would exist independently of human opinion, it seems that the moral wrongness of such torture would hold independently of human opinion in the real world also.

In spite of the above argument, one might still be tempted to say that if this community actually existed alongside dissenting opinion like ours, the action would be morally wrong relative to our opinion, but it would be morally right relative to the hypothetical community of baby torturers. Hence pseudo-relativism, where Oskar can correctly say it is morally wrong for Adolph to torture infants just for fun but the “it is morally wrong for Adolph to torture infants just for fun” is a relative truth rather than an objective one. Adolph thinks it is morally right for him to torture infants just for fun and Oskar believes it is morally wrong for Adolph to torture infants just for fun, and the beliefs of both people are true relative to their opinion.

The Problem with Pseudo-Relativism

But this form of ethical relativism doesn’t work. Contrast pseudo-relativism with ethical subjectivism. If Adolph thinks that torturing infants just for fun is morally right, then it is morally right for Adolph to do it. If Oskar believes torturing infants just for fun is morally wrong, then it is wrong for Oskar to do it. Whether ethical subjectivism is correct, it at least produces a non-contradictory answer to the question “Should Adolph torture infants just for fun?” In this way ethical subjectivism is a coherent form of ethical relativism. But what is not coherent is the belief that right and wrong do exist, where Adolph thinks its morally right for him torture infants just for fun and Oskar thinks it is morally wrong for Adolph to torture infants just for fun and have them both be right. Pseudo-relativism cannot give a coherent answer to question “Should Adolph torture infants just for fun?” It might be able to reiterate the beliefs of people about whether Adolph should torture infants just for fun but it cannot answer the question. Pseudo-relativism is not a coherent ethical system.

To drive the point home further, imagine that Oskar is a pseudo-relativist who is incapable of lying. Adolph comes to believe that pseudo-relativism is true but isn’t quite sure he understands it, so Adolph asks Oskar, “I believe I am morally obligated to torture infants just for fun, but should I do it?” What can Oskar as an honest pseudo-relativist say? Oskar can’t say “Yes” because he believes Adolph shouldn’t do it, but Oskar can’t say “No” because Adolph believes Adolph should do it. On pseudo-relativism, there doesn’t appear to be any coherent answer to Adolph’s question and thus no coherent fact of the matter as to what Adolph should do here. When it comes to moral obligations, pseudo-relativism is an incoherent mess. In contrast, both cultural relativism and ethical subjectivism handle the “moral obligation is relative to a given framework” notion in a coherent manner.