There is no required textbook reading to accompany these Lecture Notes.
This module will illustrate some further points about philosophical arguments and moral reasoning.
We will consider a view about morality itself: it is the view that morality is not objective but is at best just a matter of opinion. This view is known as Moral Skepticism. We will encounter a more precise definition below, and also consider the opposite view, which is called Moral Realism.
But first, we will examine an argument for Moral Skepticism: the Cultural Differences Argument.
[4.1.] The Cultural Differences Argument.
It is obviously true that different societies disagree about the morality of certain actions.
For example, in traditional Inuit (Eskimo[1]) society, infanticide (df.: the deliberate killing of a newborn baby) is believed to be morally permissible (not immoral) in certain circumstances (in these circumstances, it is left up to the parents to decide whether to kill the infant; there is no social stigma attached to the practice; it is more common with baby girls than with boys).[2]
But in contemporary American society, killing an infant is believed to be immoral, no matter what the circumstances. (You will read more about this practice of in the next module).
Here is an argument that is based on these facts:
The Cultural Differences Argument (CDA)
1. In some societies, such as among the Inuit, infanticide is thought to be morally acceptable.
2. In other societies, such as our own, infanticide is thought to be morally vile.
3. Therefore, infanticide is neither objectively right nor objectively wrong; it is merely a matter of opinion that varies from culture to culture.[3]
Is this argument sound? In other words, does it have true premises, and is it logically valid?
To figure out whether the CDA is a sound argument, we need to focus on the word “objectively” and on the adjective form of that word, “objective.”
The word "objective" plays a crucial role in the CDA. It’s a familiar word, it is not always clear what a given writer or speaker means by it.
Sometimes we describe people as “objective.” An objective person is someone who is unbiased and impartial: she is “not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.”[4]
But the CDA’s conclusion says that infanticide is neither objectively right nor objectively wrong. Here the word “objectively” means something different, something more philosophical. It means something like this:
objectivity (df.): something is objective when it is the way it is (i.e., it has the properties or characteristics it has) independently of what anyone believes about it, thinks about it, or feels about it.
· For example, the following are all objective facts:
· The earth orbits the sun.
· Water is H2O.
· 2+2=4.
· When we say that something is objectively true, we mean that it is true whether or not anyone believes it.
· When we say that something is objectively right or that it is objectively wrong, we mean that it is right or that it is wrong no matter whether anyone believes that it is right or that it is wrong.
· A word that means nearly the same thing as "objective" is "real."[5]
On this meaning of the word "objective," the opposite is "subjective."
subjectivity (df.): something is subjective when there are no objective truths or facts of the matter about it; there are only opinions about it, beliefs about it or feelings about it. For example, whether pizza is delicious is a subjective matter. [But whether I think that pizza is delicious is an objective fact about me.]
The conclusion of the CDA expresses a view mentioned above: Moral Skepticism. This argument is supposed to show that there is no truth of the matter about the morality of killing infants, that there is no objective right or wrong when it comes to infanticide. The only truths that are relevant to the morality of infanticide are truths about what people in different societies believe.
Moral Skepticism (df.): the view that there are no objective truths about which actions are right and which actions are wrong, i.e., no moral judgments are true (or false) independent of what people think, feel or believe about morality.[6]
· One may be a moral skeptic about all morality (call this "complete" Moral Skepticism) or just about specific issues, such as infanticide (call this "limited" Moral Skepticism).
The CDA is an argument for limited Moral Skepticism (about infanticide); its conclusion is that when it comes to the morality of infanticide, there is no such thing as objective right or wrong—there is only beliefs, opinions, feelings about whether it is right or wrong.
Moral Skepticism is the opposite of:
Moral Realism (df.): the view that there are objective truths about which actions are right and which actions are wrong, i.e., there are moral judgments that are true (and others that are false) independent of what people think, feel or believe about morality.
· One may be a Moral Realist about all morality (this is "complete" Moral Realism) or just about specific issues, such as rape ("limited" Moral Realism).
The CDA concludes that: there is no objective truth about whether infanticide is right or wrong; all there is with regard to infanticide is opinion. In other words, the CDA is an argument in support of Moral Skepticism about infanticide and against Moral Realism about infanticide.
WARNING: The labels “Moral Skepticism” and “Moral Realism” are used in different ways by different philosophers. I caution you against trying to find out more about them by just Googling them—what you find will almost certainly be at least slightly different than what we are learning about in this class.
Since "sound" means: (a) having all true premises and (b) valid, we can split this question into two parts:
(a) Are both of the premises true?
(b) Is the argument valid?
If the answer to both questions is “yes,” it is sound and its conclusion is true.
If the answer to either question is "no", then the argument is unsound, and it has failed to show that its conclusion is true.
The premises of the CDA are both true. Each premise makes a factual claim about what a specific group of people believes. The fact that these premises are about what people believe does not make them subjective. Compare:
· it is an objective fact about me that I believe Atlanta is the capitol of Georgia;
· it is an objective fact about me that I think that Turkey and Gravy Soda is not delicious; and
· it is an objective fact about most Americans that we believe that infanticide is wrong.
But the CDA is invalid, i.e., the truth of the premises would not guarantee the truth of the conclusion.
The important thing is to understand why the truth of the premises would not guarantee the truth of the conclusion.
The reason is this:
In general, the fact that different groups of people have opposing beliefs about x does not guarantee that there are no objective truths about x. It is possible for two groups to have conflicting beliefs about a subject, and for one of those groups to be right and the other to be wrong (or for both groups to be wrong).
The following argument about the shape of the earth has the same flaw:
The “Shape of the Earth” Argument
The “Shape of the Earth” Argument is invalid: its conclusion does not follow logically from its premises; in other words, it is possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false at the same time.
Furthermore, it is invalid for the same reason as the CDA: the fact that two groups of people disagree about something does not imply that there is no objective fact of the matter about it. It is entirely possible that one of those groups is just mistaken. In this case, people who believe that the earth is flat are just plain wrong.[8]
The following argument is invalid for the exact same reason:
The Santa Claus Argument
Many young children believe in Santa Claus (a magical being who flies around the world in a sled every Christmas delivering toys). Most adults do not. The fact that those people disagree doesn’t imply that the existence of Santa Claus is a merely subjective matter of opinion. The children who believe that he is real have a mistaken belief; they are objectively wrong.
A final important logical point: the fact that the CDA is unsound does not imply that its conclusion is false. It just means that the argument is itself not a good argument for that conclusion. It may still be true that infanticide is neither objectively right nor objectively wrong.
However, since the CDA is an invalid argument, those who believe that infanticide is neither objectively right nor objectively wrong need a better argument to support that claim.
Information contained in these footnotes is provided in case you are interested in further reading. You will not be quizzed on the information given in these footnotes or on the websites to which they link.
[1] Some people to whom the word “Eskimo” has been traditionally applied consider the word derogatory; “Inuit,” which means people, is now generally preferred. See Rebecca Hersher, “Why You Probably Shouldn’t Say ‘Eskimo’,” NPR.org, April 24, 2016.
[2] For more on the practice of infanticide among some tribes of Inuit people, see Milton Freeman, "A Social and Ecologic Analysis of Systematic Female Infanticide among the Netsilik Eskimo," American Anthropologist 73 (5), 1971. But also note the following claim, made by a more recent researcher: "While there is little disagreement that there were examples of infanticide in Inuit communities, it is presently not known the depth and breadth of these incidents. The research is neither complete nor conclusive to allow for a determination of whether infanticide was a rare or a widely practiced event." Andrew Hund, "Inuit." In The Encyclopedia of Infanticide, Edwin Mellen Press, 2010.
[3] James Rachels, “Some Basic Points about Arguments,” in The Right Thing to Do, 7th ed., ed. James Rachels and Stuart Rachels. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2015, p.22. In each citation, “RTD” stands for The Right Thing to Do.
[5] I derive this definition of the word "objective" from the definition of the word "real" given by the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914). Peirce is covered in my American Pragmatism course (PHIL 3120).
[6] Many different theories have been labeled "Moral Skepticism". See Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, "Moral Skepticism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. What Rachels calls "Moral Skepticism" is labeled skepticism about moral truth by Sinnott-Armstrong.
[7] Adapted from the argument Rachels gives at The Right Thing to Do p.23.
[8] Anyone who needs convincing of this can watch this live shot of the earth from the International Space Station.