Moral truth: relational properties

1
Moral truth relational properties

• Michael Lacewing
• enquiries_at_alevelphilosophy.co.uk

2
The is-ought gap

• (Natural) facts do not entail moral judgments
• Hume this oughtexpresses some new relation of
  which it seems altogether inconceivable, how
  this new relation can be a deduction from others,
  which are entirely different from it.
• Explanation morality is not a matter of fact,
  but of attitude

3
Emotivism and disagreement

• A J Ayer when two people disagree over a fact,
  the matter can be resolved (or at least, we know
  what would resolve it) when two people disagree
  over a value judgment, either they disagree over
  a (natural) fact, or there is no further way to
  resolve the disagreement.
• Moral judgments express feelings of
  approval/disapproval.

4
Moral reasoning

• But when justifying a moral claim
• E.g. Eating meat is wrong
• we appeal to natural facts
• E.g. Animals suffer.
• Moral reason a reason for someone to do
  something
• E.g. That animals suffer is a reason for you to
  not eat meat.
• That some fact is a moral reason is a relational
  property.

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Moral truth

• Whether some fact is a reason is objectively true
  or false.
• Epistemic reasons Radiometric decay indicates
  that the some dinosaur bones are 65 million years
  old. This is (objectively) a reason to believe
  that dinosaurs lived on Earth 65 million years
  ago.
• Facts about reasons are normative facts.

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Moral truth

• To say that something is wrong is to say that the
  moral reasons against doing it are stronger than
  any moral reason in favour of doing it.
• The judgment, x is wrong, is objectively true
  or false.
• Hume is right that natural facts do not establish
  moral truths. We must also consider the normative
  facts.

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Are moral reasons objective?

• How can something that is relational be
  objective?
• Many facts depend on us and how we are, e.g.
  whether a piece of music is baroque or classical.
• Aristotle There are also facts about what we
  need in order to flourish.
• But moral reasons are relative to individuals
  whether the fact that animals suffer is a reason
  for me not to eat meat depends on whether I care

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Two views of attitudes

• Blackburn our judgments about what reasons we
  have are a reflection of our attitudes, not a
  description of independent normative facts.
• Scanlon our attitudes are reflections of our
  judgments about reasons, they are
  judgment-sensitive.

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Primary and secondary qualities

• Primary qualities properties of an object that
  are not related by definition to perceivers, e.g.
  size, mass, and shape (scientific account of the
  world)
• Secondary qualities properties that are related
  to perceivers, e.g. colour and smell (commonsense
  account)
• Hume secondary qualities are mind-dependent

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The analogy with secondary qualities

• Hume when you pronounce any action or character
  to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that you
  have a feeling of blame from the contemplation
  of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be
  compard to sounds, colours, heat and cold,
  which are not qualities in objects, but
  perceptions in the mind
• Moral judgments (and talk about moral reasons)
  are, ultimately, expressions of our feelings and
  what we care about

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A cognitivist response

• McDowell secondary qualities are properties of
  the object that enable it to cause certain
  experiences in us.
• Colour is relational, but objective To be brown
  is to look brown to normal perceivers under
  normal conditions.
• Moral judgments are relative to human responses,
  but are not subjective.