Rachels, Ch. 3, Subjectivism

●        SUBJECTIVISM IN GENERAL

          ○        No facts or objectives truths (about the world) in morality

          ○        No (unique?) right answers to moral questions

          ○        Morality is

                    -        Mere matter of personal opinion

                    -        Mere expression or statement of feelings

                    -        Matter of sentiment/emotion/feeling, not truth, fact, or reason

●        Subjectivism applied to claims about homosexuality

          ○        When someone says “Homosexuality is wrong”

          ○        Facts are

                    -        Some people are homosexual and others heterosexual

                    -        Some people have feelings of approval about homosexuality and others of disapproval

          ○        No facts about homosexuality being right or wrong

          ○        When we perceive a gay couple holding hands, we don’t perceive any (fact of) wrongness (or rightness)

                    -        (Assumption is, if it was a fact, we’d perceive it)

          ○        The wrongness or rightness is something we (the perceiver) add

                    -        It is subjective (from the subject)

                    -        Not objective (from the object)

                    -        It is our own feeling or emotion toward the behavior and is not a property of the behavior

          ○        So when we think an act is objectively right or wrong, we confuse something in us with something in the object

          ○        Rightness or wrongness is a mere feeling or attitude we have and not an objective fact about the act we evaluate

●        Two specific versions of subjectivism: Simple subjectivism and emotivism

●        SIMPLE SUBJECTIVISM (SS)

          ○        X is morally right/wrong means I (the speaker) approve of (or disapprove of) X

                    -        Contrast this account with the one Rachels gives:

                              ■        According to Rachels, X is morally right means X has the weight of reasons on its side (it has the strongest arguments for it)

          ○        According to SS, moral language states facts about a speaker’s attitudes and feelings

                    -        This is strange: When you say some act is wrong, it turns out (according to SS) that you are talking about yourself and your attitudes (not about the act)

●        Two problems with simple subjectivism

          ○        Makes people’s moral views infallible (and this is not plausible)

                    -        Makes (sincerely stated) moral statements infallible--since we are only talking about our own attitudes

                    -        But we obviously aren’t infallible about our moral claims, we do make mistakes

          ○        Makes disagreement impossible:

                    -        Because (according to SS) we are talking about our own feelings toward actions and not the actions themselves,

                    -        When one person says “X is right” and another says “No X is wrong” they are not disagreeing

                              ■        One is saying “I approve of X” and the other is saying “I disapprove of X”

                              ■        But both of these can be true at the same time and each can agree that the other has the attitude stated

                    -        But because moral disagreement obviously exists, SS must be mistaken, for it makes such disagreement impossible

●        EMOTIVISM (=E)

          ○        X is morally right/wrong means either

                    -        “Do X”

                              or

                    -        “Yuck on X” or “Boo X”

          ○        For emotivism, moral language is not a fact stating use of language

          ○        A moral utterance is not an attempt to say something true or false

          ○        Moral utterances are either

                    -        Commands (which aren’t T or F),

                              or

                    -        Expressions of emotions (as opposed to stating or reporting or emotions as SS claims)

          ○        The point of moral utterances are to influences people’s attitudes or behavior

●        Emotivism avoids the two problems identified in SS

          ○        Moral utterances are not infallible (always correct) as they aren’t attempts to say true or false things

          ○        Disagreements exist in attitudes

                    -        “Yeah Cougars” versus “Down with the Cougars”

                    -        While there is no disagreement about truth, there is a disagreement about what folks want to happen

●        Problem for emotivism: Mistaken view of role of reason giving in ethics

          ○        If purpose of moral language is to influence behavior or attitude, then what is the purpose of reason giving in morality?

          ○        Answer: To influence attitudes

          ○        So a good reason (according to E) is any consideration that has this desired affect (influences the attitude in the right way)

          ○        For example, I say “President Obama is a bad man”

                    -        According to E this amounts to me trying to get you to take a negative attitude toward him (and not vote for him)

                    -        If a good reason is one that produces this attitude, then when I appeal to your prejudice against Muslims by saying “Obama is a Muslim” and this leads you dislike and not vote for Obama, it follows that I gave a good reason.

                    -        But this is a totally skewed view of that good reasons are and of the point of reason giving

                    -        Good reasons are not simply the ones that have the desired psychological effect

                              ■        At the very least they must be logically relevant (and true)

          ○        Rachels concludes that E is mistaken because its view of moral reason giving is unacceptable.

●        ARE THERE MORAL FACTS?

●        Subjectivism is appealing because it presents a false dilemma

          ○        If falsely assumes there are only two possibilities

●        Either

          ○        (1) Moral truths/facts/values exist in same way as planets and trees exist

                    -        That is they are physical objects that we can perceive with out senses

          ○        (2) Or moral truths/facts/values are mere personal feelings or emotions or attitudes (that we take toward behavior)

●        The subjectivist argues that since (1) is obviously false, (2) must be true (hence subjectivism is true)

●        This is a false dilemma because there is a third option

          ○        (3) Moral truths are truths of reasons (they exist as truths of reason)

                    -        A moral judgment is true if it is backed by better reasons than its alternatives

                    -        The correct answer to moral questions is the answer that has the weight of reason on its side.

●        Moral truths are objective in the sense that

          ○        They are true independent of what we want to think

                    -        We can’t make the weight of reason lie on one side of an issue by wanting it to lie on that side of the issue

                    -        Reason says what it says regardless of our desires about what it says

          ○        We can be mistaken in ethics; we can be wrong about what reason recommends (about where the weight of reason lies)

●        ARE THERE PROOFS IN ETHICS?

●        Many say no

          ○        Science is our paradigm of objectivity and proof and ethics lacks that sort of objectivity or proof

●        Rachels provide examples of what he considers proof in ethics

●        One proof in ethics is this:

          ○        Teacher gives a test that a student judges to be unfair.

          ○        The test covered in details matters that were quite trivial, while ignoring matters the teacher had stressed as important.

          ○        It also covered material not in class readings or discussions

          ○        Test was so long not even best students could complete it in the time allowed (and it was graded on the assumption it should be completed)

          ○        All these things are true and the teacher has no response when confronted with them

          ○        Would seem like this is a proof that the test was unfair.

●        People (mistakenly) think moral judgments are unprovable

          ○        Because they use the wrong standard of proof (scientific, empirical standard)

          ○        Focus on hard cases; there are lots of easy cases people agree upon

          ○        Falsely believe that proving something means convincing everyone