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Making Sense of Morality: Where Do We Go from Here?

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Summary of the Survey

We have surveyed major ethical options for what our core morals are, including:

  • Are they how we happen to talk?
  • Are they physical things? Perhaps evolutionary products?
  • Are they ways of behaving or moving our bodies?
  • Are they results of a utilitarian calculus?
  • Are they emotive utterances?
  • Are they particulars? (nominalism)

But, at least since Hobbes, I’ve argued that none of the views can preserve our core morals of murder and rape being wrong, and love and justice being good.

What Are These Core Morals?

For one, they seem to be objectively real. They seem to exist independently of us as moral principles and values. They also simply seem to be intrinsically valid, and not due to anything else (like, the consequences). That is, they seem to have an essential moral nature. Moreover, they cannot be just physical things or particulars, as we’ve seen. Instead, they seem to be a “one-in-many” – each one is one principle (or value), yet it can have many instances/examples. In sum, they seem to be Platonic-like universals.

That raises many questions, however. Earlier, I remarked that Christine Korsgaard rightly observed that it’s hard to see how such things could have anything to do with us. While she thinks people are physical, it still applies if we are a body-soul unity. Why should these abstract objects have anything to do with us? On Plato’s view, they exist in a heavenly realm of values as brute features of reality.

What makes justice and love character qualities that should be present in us? Why is it inappropriate morally for us to murder or rape? These are normative qualities, not merely descriptive. As we’ve seen, it is hard to see how we can get the moral ought from what is descriptively the case. Yet, that problem could be overcome if humans have an essential nature that makes these moral values appropriate for them, and these acts inappropriate.

Earlier, I argued that the soul as our essential nature provides a sound explanation for how we can be the identical person through change. Body-soul dualists affirm that the soul is our essential nature, and it sets the boundary conditions for what is appropriate for us. For instance, it is inappropriate for us to grow a cat’s tail due to our nature, and it is inappropriate for us to murder due to our nature.

We also saw another reason for the soul’s existence. We do in fact think and form beliefs, yet these have intentionality, which I argued is best understood as something immaterial and having an essence. Now, it is hard to conceive how a physical brain could interact with something immaterial, but that problem does not seem to exist for an immaterial soul/mind.

Moreover, why should we feel guilt and shame when we break these core morals? That doesn’t make sense if these morals are just abstract objects that are immaterial and not located in space and time. Instead, we seem to have such responses in the presence of persons we have wronged morally. Also, retributive justice doesn’t make sense if we repay an abstract principle or value. But it would make sense if a person should be repaid.

There is another explanation we have seen for the grounding of these core morals: they are grounded in God. That helps solve the question of why we feel shame when we break one of these morals. But, that also raises questions, such as: are they good because God commands them, or does God command them because they are good (i.e., the Euthyphro dilemma)? Also, which God would this be?

I will start to tackle these in the next essay. But, first, there is another option for properties besides universals (realism) and nominalism. It is divine conceptualism; properties just are God’s concepts. Justice in us is God’s concept. Yet, concepts have intentionality, but virtues do not. When we think about people being just, we don’t mean they have a concept of justice (though they could), but that they have that virtue present in them. So, offhand, divine conceptualism seems to trade on a confusion.

For Further Reading

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 12

Making Sense of Morality: A Brief Assessment of MacIntyre’s Ethics

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Some Contributions

What should we make of MacIntyre’s proposals? His ethics focuses on the importance of good character by embodying moral virtues and being authentic. He also draws attention to the importance of community. And, he emphasizes the need for living out the virtues, and not merely engaging in abstract theorizing.

Broad Concerns

As we have seen, MacIntyre and other authors writing in the light of the postmodern turn embrace nominalism. Yet, we have seen its disastrous effects, leaving us without any qualities whatsoever. So, there are no people, no morals (not even our core ones), no world, etc. But surely this is false, and it destroys morality.

We also have surveyed issues with historicism, which ends up with no way to start making interpretations. Yet, are we really so situated that we cannot access reality directly? Now, surely no human is blind to nothing, and we cannot know something exhaustively. Surely we have our biases, too.

Yet, from daily life, it seems we can notice that we do access reality. For example, how do children learn to form concepts of apples? It seems it is by having many experiences of them. Then they can notice their commonalities, and they can form a concept on that basis. Then they can use that concept to compare something else they see (e.g., a tomato) and notice if it too is an apple or not. Adults do this, too, when they use phones to refill prescriptions, or enter their “PIN” for a debit card purchase.

It seems to be a descriptive fact that we can compare our concepts with things as they are, just as in that apple example. We also can adjust our concepts to better fit with reality. I think we can know this to be so, if we pay close attention to what is consciously before our minds.

However, how we attend to what we are aware of can reflect patterns. We can fall into ruts, noticing some things while not attending to others. As J. P. Moreland suggests, “situatedness functions as a set of habit forming background beliefs and concepts that direct our acts of noticing or failing to notice various features of reality” (Moreland, 311). But these habits do not preclude us from accessing reality.

Specific Concerns

Now, MacIntyre rejects the soul as the basis for one’s being the same person through change. For one, it would be an essence, and he seems to think humans are just bodies (Dependent Rational Animals, 6). Can the unity of one’s narrative meet this need?

For him, a narrative does not have an essence; it is composed of sentences that tell a person’s story. At any time, the narrative’s identity just is the bundle of sentences that are its members. However, if a new sentence is added, then the set of members has changed, and a new story has taken the old one’s place. Sadly, then, someone cannot grow in virtue or rationality on this view, for they do not maintain their identity through change.

Moreover, can we really see that one tradition is rationally superior to another? MacIntyre in banking on our ability to become bilingual. However, on his view, a person at any time is constituted by his or her narrative, and that in turn cannot be pried off from the tradition on which it is based. When a person immerses him or herself into another tradition to learn its language, that learning always will be done from the interpretive standpoint of the first tradition, by which that person has been formed. Indeed, it could not be otherwise, since that person is narratively “constituted” by the first tradition’s conceptual/linguistic framework. But, as that person “learns” that second language, new sentences should be added to that person’s narrative. Yet, if so, that person no longer is the same! So it becomes impossible to see the rational superiority of another tradition on his own views.

For Further Reading

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed.; Dependent Rational Animals; and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

J. P. Moreland, “Two Areas of Reflection and Dialogue with John Franke,” Philosophia Christi 8:2 (2006)

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 11

Making Sense of Morality: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Ethics

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

MacIntyre’s Diagnosis

MacIntyre (b. 1929) observes people seem to speak from different moral standpoints, or languages. Some talk as though they are emotivists, while others are Kantians, utilitarians, relativists, Aristotelians, etc. But, it seems we no longer have a way to dialogue morally and come to agreements. These different ways of morally talking seem to presuppose objective standards to evaluate them. However, he claims that fails because they presuppose different evaluative concepts and frameworks.

This situation leads to shouting matches. This happened, he thinks, because the Enlightenment “project” dropped the idea of a moral telos (goal, end) from Aristotle and Aquinas. Without it, we seem left with just human nature as it is, and ethics as the tools to become moral. But, what should we be like?

With the different moral theories so far, MacIntyre thinks we lack how rationally to decide between them. He claims this is because no independent, rational standards exist to decide between them.

Without a cogent answer, Nietzsche wins – ethics is just about power after all. Or, perhaps we discarded an earlier moral tradition too quickly. MacIntyre thinks we should recover the Aristotelian moral tradition (and later, Thomism) to solve this dilemma.

MacIntyre’s Proposal

To recover Aristotle’s ethics, MacIntyre recommends several changes. First, while Aristotle depended upon the soul to ground a person’s identity through change (including growth in virtue), MacIntyre says we must reject the soul. In its place, he argues for the narrative unity to a person. One’s narrative is drawn from the narrative context of that person’s form of life (community), with its formative story and language.

While Aristotle’s virtues were universal properties present in one’s soul, MacIntyre needs a new basis for them. He appeals to practices, such as medicine, which are socially established, systematic, cooperative activities with goods internal and external to them. For a doctor, the internal goods include helping sick people get well, while an external good could be material prosperity. Practices have standards of excellence (virtue, or arête), and practitioners’ abilities to achieve those goals, and their understanding thereof, grow.

Instead of Aristotle’s context (the Greek polis), MacIntyre appeals to traditions, which are extended historically. They are socially embodied by particular peoples in their communities. A tradition is an argument “about the goods which constitute that tradition” (MacIntyre, After Virtue, 229). For example, Christianity could be a tradition, formed by many particular Christian communities down through time.

The telos of one’s life come from the intersection of that life with the master story of the tradition. Moral virtues enable the pursuit of a telos for the good of that person, to sustain the tradition, and help achieve the goods internal to practices.

MacIntyre and Language

MacIntyre draws heavily upon the later Wittgenstein’s (d. 1951) views of language. Each language is nominal and tied to a given form of life. Language does not have universal meaning. Instead, meaning is a matter of language use (verbal and nonverbal behavior) in that context, according to its grammatical rules and formative story.

Rationality is not some universal phenomenon; it is tied to a tradition with its master story (e.g., for Christians, the gospel story) and language. Though we always access reality through the interpretive lens of our tradition, MacIntyre still maintains there is a real world apart from our interpretations.

Yet, MacIntyre argues that we can rationally adjudicate which tradition is rationally better than another. How? It cannot be done as an outsider to a tradition; it has to be done from the inside. One learns the language of one’s own tradition, and learns to interpret and reason from under that “aspect.” But, that person also can immerse him or herself in another tradition and learn its language as a second first language. That way, by being able to reason and interpret in both ways, that person can “see” if a tradition can solve its own problems and that of another. If so, that tradition is rationally superior and deserves one’s allegiance. So, we can avoid relativism, even though rational standards are internal to each tradition.

For Further Reading

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed., and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 9

Making Sense of Morality: An Introduction to Postmodernism

Various ethical terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction to Postmodernism

Postmodernism is the last major kind of ethical views I will survey. Since it is post-modern, we will need to survey the modern era’s traits to which postmoderns are responding. In this essay, I will explore some of the historical and sociological factors leading to postmodernity, along with some key philosophical positions, too.

Historical, Sociological Influences

People date modernity’s beginning differently, but we can point to the rise of the Scientific Revolution with Gassendi’s and Hobbes’s influences in the 16th century, and the related scientific shifts then and in the 17th century. As a first trait, modernity was marked by a tendency to believe in the inevitability of progress from scientific discoveries, particularly from the theory of evolution. Due to this progress, humankind could get better and better.

In sharp contrast, in postmodernity, people are far less trusting of science’s inherent goodness. They have witnessed the 20th century, with two world wars, concentration camps, genocides, and mass murders. (Indeed, some mark the end of modernity with World War II.) Nazis used medical science to perpetrate gross experiments upon Jewish and other subjects. Science also provided the most destructive weapon yet developed, the nuclear bomb. So, people therefore are far less trusting that science and scientists are working just for peoples’ good.

Second, moderns had confidence in human reason, apart from divine revelation, to know universal truths. For example, witness Descartes’s (d. 1650) view of having certainty as a foundation for our beliefs. But, postmoderns stress the fallibility of human reason and its biases, and how all too often people use it to oppress others. Further, they reject knowledge of universal truths; we know truths from our particular standpoints (such as a community and its formative narrative).

Third, in modernity,people tended to trust their political and religious leaders. Yet, there have been many political scandals and cover-ups which have eroded that trust. Scandals also surfaced amongst religious leaders, such as accusations of molestation by Catholic priests. Many assume televangelists simply want money. In postmodernity,people have grown suspicious from the fallout of these betrayals of trust.

Fourth, moderns tend to think we can find objective, universal truths that apply to everyone. There are normative ways for all cultures to live. However, to postmoderns, that idea seems oppressive and imperialistic. 

Philosophical Influences 

We already have seen major shifts in western history from universals to nominalism; from mind-body dualism to materialism, and with both of these, a turn to empiricism; and from the view that we can know reality directly to historicism. But, postmodernity is not a complete rejection of what developed during modernity. Even though we have seen the above mentioned sociological and historical shifts in mindsets in postmodernity, postmoderns continue the modern focus on nominalism with its rejection of universals with their essences. For instance, they focus on knowledge being tied to particular “forms of life” (or communities, social groups). We are so shaped by our situatedness (the various social, familial, historical, cultural factors that shape how we interpret and understand life) that we cannot gaze directly into reality from a universal standpoint. Moreover, they tend to reject an essential nature to all humans, leading some toward materialism.

A key factor in postmodern thought is the turn to interpretation. This reflects a further turn than just the “turn to language.” We already have seen how Nietzsche placed much stress on how we use our words. Often, in modernity, the focus was on individual sentences that could be understood by anyone due to their universal meaning. However, for postmoderns, the focus is on holism: meaning is found in a whole – a form of life – which cannot be separated from its language and formative story, or narrative. And, we all speak different languages. Meanings then are a matter of how we use language (i.e., verbal and nonverbal behavior) in a given form of life, according to the “grammar” of that community.

Next, I will explore the views of a particular ethicist, Alasdair MacIntyre, who writes in light of the postmodern turn.

For Further Reading

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 8

Making Sense of Morality: A Brief Assessment of Critical Theory

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

What then should we think of critical theory (CT) and its shaping influences in these other views? I’ll consider some strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

First, proponents rightly point out many injustices that should be addressed. They are right that too often, people in power abuse it to oppress people, which is wrong. Second, they rightly note that (for example) racial injustices can be embedded in systems, even if there are no individuals’ racist intentions. Third, reasoning morally in abstract ways can blind us to oppression and harms. We need to attend to peoples’ particular, embodied, social-historical factors in our policies, for they have to live with their good and bad effects. Fourth, people should be treated with justice, dignity, and equality.

Reality

CT proponents tend to adopt materialism and nominalism. Now, we saw with Daniel Dennett how without essences, everything becomes interpretation, yet without a way to get started and know anything. Also, with nominalism, while focuses our attention on particulars, it also undermines reality. But this end undermines all for which CT advocates have labored, for there is no real oppression or liberation, no rights or wrongs, or anything else. What they rely on to give their views strength (i.e., nominalism) actually destroys them.

Yet, if we don’t come to grips with the end result of nominalism, we can seduce ourselves to think everything is what it is in name only – due to how we have conceived of it. So, both these views lead us to think that what exists is our construct. Yet, to be consistent, that means oppression (as well as liberation) is just some particular group’s construct. Justice, dignity, and equality, all of which are good moral values, end up being just the way a particular group has constructed their morals. But that result is anything but what critical theorists want. They argue for their views as the way things really are, and the way things should be for all people. Yet, based on their own theory’s bases, they cannot be such. Indeed, they are just a particular group’s constructs, and if they try to universalize them, they actually could be imperialistic and oppressive.

Knowledge

Earlier, I explored how Kant’s epistemology led to an inability to know anything, since we cannot traverse the series of appearances that “stand between” us and something as it really is. A similar problem resurfaces with historicism. Here, we cannot access reality directly; we can know it only insofar as we interpret it. Now, there is a very good point to be made here: what we experience we do need to interpret. It is one thing for me to see an animal in my yard; it is another for me to see it as one of our pets and act accordingly.

Similarly, the strength of CT claims depends upon our ability to see real people in real conditions, and see them as unjust. But, can we do this on historicism? I do not think so. Since we can never access something real as it is in itself, apart from our interpretation, it seems we only access our interpretation (call it I1) thereof. But, now a new regress appears. I1 is real, but, per the theory, I cannot access it as it really is, but only as I interpret it (I2). But then that same repetition occurs with I3, I4, and so on, without a way to ever get started. Knowledge becomes impossible on historicism. (Moreover, how can we even form an interpretation if we cannot access something as it really is, even if we do not know it exhaustively?)

Ethics

So, justice, dignity, and equality are nothing but our constructs, and they cannot be preserved due to the reasons above. Plus, since they are just “up to us,” it is possible (conceivable) that their moral goodness could have turned out otherwise.

Further, the fundamental duty on CT (that we are to liberate the oppressed from the oppressors) seems to lead to never-ending violence. Since there are only two groups, once the oppressed have been liberated, now they are the oppressors, and they and the former oppressors have switched places. But, now the cycle must repeat endlessly, with wanton violence.

Though CT identifies real injustices and oppression, it cannot hope to be an adequate basis to address them.

Making Sense of Morality: Liberation, Feminist, & Queer Ethics

Various ethics terms
Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

In this essay, I will survey key points of three theories that have been deeply shaped by critical theory (CT). I will try to draw out their ethical implications. In the next essay, I will assess CT.

Liberation Theology

The first is liberation theology. We will explore it through the teachings of the Catholic theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez (b. 1928). His ideas have been widely influential in Latin America and the west.

For him, the purpose of liberation is achieve freedom from anything that hinders humans’ fulfillment and communion with God and one another. Economic oppression is a key, but not the only, form of domination. In general, liberation is from sin. Yet, liberation can take many forms, such as by abolishing private property, changing the access to power by the exploited, and using a social revolution to break dependencies, such as upon the United States and its capitalist system. In his mind, socialism is far more fruitful as a political organization.

Rather than stressing abstract, universal principles, Gutiérrez focuses on concrete, particular people and their embodiment of oppression and suffering. For him, he endorses the interpretive lens of liberation as normative, and he sees liberation as a dominant biblical theme. So, we should read Scripture through this lens and in light of our embodied experience.  

Feminist Ethics of Welch and Harrison

There are varieties of feminist thought, but here I will look at two exemplars, Sharon Welch and Bev Harrison. For them, feminism follows CT in some key ways. First, feminist thought assumes the dynamic of oppression by oppressors. Second, it rejects many dualisms, such as of body and soul. Third, it stresses embodied, situated particulars in a historicist epistemology. Fourth, it rejects universals and essential natures.

For Sharon Welch (b. 1952), by attending to universal, abstract theorizing, we overlook practical effects thereof. For example, if we attend to the actual history of Christianity, she thinks we can see “the denial by the church and by Western culture of full humanity to women and minorities” (Welch, 59). Welch also embraces a historicist view of truth (Welch, 10). Our concepts are contingent upon our historical conditions.

Bev Harrison (d. 2012) agrees that we are historically situated. All our concepts, including our norms, dualisms, and even what is right or wrong are the social constructs of a given people. Since all knowledge is a construct, based on the particulars in a given setting, she thinks we should focus on praxis versus abstract theory in ethics.

Our historical situatedness entails we are embodied beings. To her, mind-body dualism is mistaken for various reasons. For one, we cannot pry the body off the soul, for all knowledge is body mediated. Two, it denigrates the body. Third, dualism entails difference and therefore subjugation.

To her, male-female dualism grounds patriarchy and its oppression of women. Further, other oppressive power relations and injustices are interrelated with sexism. These include racism, economic exploitation, and cultural imperialism, from all of which we need liberation.

Gender Studies and Queer Theory

Gender studies focuses on embodied particulars and historically situated knowledge. The American Psychological Association defines gender as “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women.” Gender identity is an interpretation of oneself as a particular individual, without reference to universals or essences. Yet, it is not separated from groups, and these in turn are tied to oppression.

Moreover, queer theorists reject heteronormativity and male-female “binary” thinking as static and oppressive views. Michele Foucault (d. 1984) thought there is no essence to sex. Judith Butler (b. 1956) describes gender as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (Butler, 45). Thus, queer theory creates many possibilities for how to conceive of one’s sexuality, resulting in a perception of having a liberated sexuality, notwithstanding one’s anatomy.

For Further Reading

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, rev. ed.

Bev Harrison, Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 8

Sharon Welch, Communities of Resistance and Solidarity

“What is the Difference Between Sex and Gender?”

Making Sense of Morality: Critical Theory Overview

Various ethical terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

Naturalistic ethics remains a dominant moral approach in the west. But there are at least two other contemporary kinds of ethics. They are critical theory and its particular versions, as well as postmodernism. I will start with critical theory (CT), with a focus today on social justice. 

Overview of Critical Theory

Social justice has a long and venerable history, including efforts such as abolishing British and American slavery; caring for the vulnerable, such as the poor, widows, orphans, and minorities; and caring for the sick, such as through building hospitals. Today, however, there seems to be a “new kind” of social justice that focuses on issues such as (1) economic justice through the redistribution of resources; (2) freedom from discrimination due to one’s gender identity, and to be given positive rights on that basis; (3) environmental justice; and (4) racism and reparations.

Often, these contemporary efforts seem to be grounded in CT, which has a deep influence in the humanities, whether at secular or religious institutions. CT has spawned a number of specific studies, such as critical race, ethnic, legal, gender and queer, and cultural studies. It is having much influence in part because proponents are identifying some real injustices which should be addressed, such as racism, sexism, slavery, economic oppression, mistreatment of women, etc.

Based on several key philosophical positions, and Marxist-inspired thought, CT began in the “Frankfurt school.” That school included several key thinkers, such as Max Horkheimer (d. 1973), Theodor Adorno (d. 1969), and Herbert Marcuse (d. 1979). CT also was influenced by Antonio Gramsci (d. 1937), and all four were influenced significantly by Karl Marx (d. 1883).

Three Key Positions

Some of the reasons for the influence of CT is that it taps into accepted views we have seen. First, it accepts materialism: reality is made of matter, without any essences. Second, everything is particular (nominalism). Third, in terms of knowledge, it accepts historicism.

Historicism is like the view we saw in Kant, that we cannot know reality as it is in itself (i.e., directly). CT rejects knowledge of universal truths for all people at all times and places, for that would require a universal standpoint. Instead, historicists believe all knowledge is situated: it is socially-based and embedded in a given historical location and time. Our situatedness shapes how we interpret reality, and, like a set of lenses, we always experience and interpret reality through that interpretive framework. Yet, we cannot take off our glasses and get a direct, uninterpreted gaze into reality itself. Everything is our interpretation, drawn from our particular historical location.

Nietzsche (d. 1900) helped give rise to historicism, too. As a naturalist, he denied any essences. Also, due to nominalism, there are no literal identities between any two things; we construct things by taking them to be identical. Unlike Kant, there are no truths of reason (a priori). Indeed, things like the will are just words, the way we happen to talk. Even that we are the subjects of our thoughts is just an interpretation according to our grammatical formulae. Our teaching how to use words deceives us to think such things are real. Indeed, claims to know what is real just reflect our will to power, when actually all knowledge is perspectival.

Ethics 

Now, CT posits that there are two groups, the oppressors and the oppressed. A critical theory seeks to liberate people from domination and oppression and increase freedom in all their forms. Ethically, our fundamental duty is to liberate the oppressed. That is done by leveling power and redistributing resources (i.e., material solutions, since matter is what is real). This means an equality ofoutcomes, notopportunity.

Moreover, traditional western societies’ institutions oppress and alienate people from their true selves by disrespect, disapproval, and social inequalities. Instead, people are to be free to live as they want (e.g., define their own sexuality). For secular critical theorists, this liberation is accomplished in part by the state’s coercive power.

For Further Reading

Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory

Friedrich Nietzsche, “Life, Knowledge, and Self-Consciousness,” and “Prejudices of Philosophers,” in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Patrick Gardiner

Roger Scruton, Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left

Making Sense of Morality: Problems with Naturalism 3

Various ethical terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

Previously, I explored issues with Armstrong’s naturalistic kind of properties and how we cannot have knowledge on them. Now I will look at nominalism, which seems to be the most likely naturalistic view of properties. As Wilfrid Sellars (d. 1989) remarked, “A naturalist ontology must be a nominalistic ontology” (109). Yet, I will argue that nominalism undermines knowledge, and it will do so for naturalism, too, including in ethics. Yet that undercuts our clear knowledge of our core morals.

Nominalism

Unlike realists, who affirm the reality of universals, nominalists think that everything is particular. Literally, there are no identical qualities shared between two or more things. Moreover, every particular thing is just one thing (i.e., it is simple). But, how nominalist theories treat particulars varies.

For instance, on trope nominalism, there are many particular red color tropes in a bag of red delicious apples. While they may be analyzed as being exactly similar (yet not literally identical), they are discrete red tropes; e.g., red1, red2, red3, etc. An apple is many different tropes (e.g., a color trope, a sweetness trope, a round trope, etc.) that are bundled together

For austere nominalism, there are only concrete, particular objects. They are concrete, for they are located in space and time. A red delicious apple is just one thing, a red-sweet-round-apple. Finally, metalinguistic nominalism agrees with austere nominalism that there are only concrete objects. But, it holds that the “claims apparently about universals are really disguised ways of talking about linguistic expressions” (Loux, 46).

Assessment

As we have seen, nominalism has had a lengthy, deep influence on the west, including in ethics. I traced it back to Ockham, but since Hobbes, and running through Hume, Kant, Bentham, Mill, and almost every naturalist, nominalism has dominated philosophical thought, including ethics, as well as modern science.

Yet, is it true? Consider again that on it, regardless of the specific version, something is just one thing. It is not composed of two or more things. In contrast, realists hold that when a universal property (e.g., red) is instanced in an object (an apple), that instance of red is a universal that has been particularized. The instance is the union of two things, which makes it complex.

Now, on nominalism, it seems we treat an object as a particular something. That thing might be a property like red, or a concrete object like an apple or a word. Yet, we treat each one as though it is something that is particularized. Yet, in reality, they cannot be complex. So, then it seems that either one of these things, the “particularizer” (the individuator), or the thing itself, can be eliminated without any real loss.

Suppose we eliminate the particularizer – e.g., the “1” in red1. Yet, if we do that, then we seem left with just red, the color itself, and it is not particularized. But that is what realists claim to be the case, that red is an abstract entity that is particularized when it enters into the being of some object, like an apple. So, eliminating the particularizer spells the end of nominalism.

Instead, suppose we eliminate the quality (or object). But, then we are left with just a particularizer (here, the “1”) which individuates nothing. That, however, makes no sense, for we always would ask, “one what?” In this case, the dire result is that there are no qualities or objects in reality. But, that means nominalism undermines reality.

Since nominalism maintains that every particular is just one thing, we can take either route without any difference in reality. In that case, we can take the latter option, and so we see that nominalism cannot preserve any qualities in reality whatsoever. There would not be any people, animals, plants, beliefs, and certainly not any morals. Nominalism undermines our core morals, as well as morality altogether. Moreover, it undermines naturalism as false.

For Further Reading

Keith Campbell, Abstract Particulars

Michael Loux, Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 3rd ed.

Wilfrid Sellars, Naturalism and Ontology

R. Scott Smith,“Tropes and Some Ontological Prerequisites for Knowledge,” Metaphysica 20:2 (2019)

Making Sense of Morality: Problems with Naturalism 2

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

Now I will explore a second issue with naturalism, this time from the standpoint of properties, the qualities or features of things. For naturalists, there seem to be two options for what properties can be. The first is D. M. Armstrong’s immanent universals, which I will explore here. In the next essay, I will look at nominalism, of which there are trope, austere, and metalinguistic varieties. Yet, I will argue that all face serious problems for us to have knowledge. If so, then it seems we cannot knowledge based on naturalism, even that it is true. Nor can we have knowledge about morals on it.

Immanent Universals

Armstrong (d. 2014) holds to materialism and universals. Clearly, this is unlike Plato’s variety; for Armstrong, universals must be material. Moreover, universals are located in space-time. Consider two electrons, both with charge e. He maintains that e is a universal that is multiply located.

Now, suppose I see an object. To do that, Armstrong says there is a causal chain between me and the object. Light waves bounce off the object, and a long chain of physical states eventually impinges on my retina, travels through my optic nerve, and eventually produces a brain state (a perception) in me. If that perception is veridical, he claims I am having a true belief about that object. If the perception is an illusion, I have a false belief. In this way, Armstrong thinks we can know external, physical reality directly.

Yet, if I am but physical stuff, and there is a potentially infinite series of physical states between me and the object, it seems I cannot traverse the chain and access the object itself. It seems I can “access” just the last state. Furthermore, the immediately prior physical state that causes that belief modifies my brain. There is not a reproduction of the same physical set of originating conditions (the object) that is passed down through the chain; rather, each state modifies the subsequent one. In that case, it seems I have no hope to ever access the object as it is. Therefore, it seems on his kind of naturalism, we cannot know things as they are in reality, which would extend to morals, science, and any other topic.

These implications are important, for this causal theory of perception is not unique to Armstrong. It also has much appeal to other naturalists, such as Michael Tye and Fred Dretske.

For Further Reading

D. M. Armstrong, Perception and the Physical World

R. Scott Smith, Naturalism and Our Knowledge of Reality, ch. 1

Making Sense of Morality: Problems with Naturalism I

Various ethical terms
Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

Now that we have completed a survey of several versions of naturalistic ethics, we should consider a few big-picture issues for naturalism. Should we accept it as true? When we looked at Singer’s views, I raised one issue: it seems there is no sameness of one’s personal identity on naturalism. But, without that, there are no continuing subjects. Here, I will argue that on naturalism, we will lose all knowledge of reality because there are no essences.

Daniel Dennett and Knowledge on Naturalism

Dennett (b. 1942) is a leading philosopher of neuroscience. He denies there are any real, immaterial, “mental” states (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, desires). Nor is there any real intentionality, the ofness or aboutness of mental states.

Let me explain intentionality more. For many, it is a property of thoughts, beliefs, observations, concepts, meanings, and more. It seems these always are of or about something, even if that thing does not obtain in reality (e.g., Pegasus). I can think of Pegasus, even though there isn’t a winged horse. So, it seems intentionality would not be physical. If it were, it seems that having a thought about something would require that thing exists in order to physically cause that thought in me.

Instead, for Dennett, natural selection is a blind process without any intentionality, goals, or real thoughts. There is only physical stuff, including brains that process our sensory inputs. There are just brain states, patterns of physical forces, and behavior that we take (or interpret) to be about something, though they really aren’t. These interpretations are the result of many of the brain’s distributed “takings.”

Consistently, Dennett also denies any essences exist. But, if they did, they would be something non-physical that’s true of something (e.g., a person, a thought, or a meaning) just because of what kind of thing it is – i.e., due to its essence. If real, Dennett says there could be a “deeper fact” beyond just behavior of what our thoughts (or beliefs, experiences, etc.) are really about.

But, since they are not real, we are left with just interpreting behavior by adopting a tactic he calls the intentional stance (IS). Using it, we treat a frog, human, or chess-playing computer as if it were an intentional system. The IS is “the tactic of interpreting an entity by adopting the presupposition that is an approximation of the ideal of an optimally designed (i.e. rational) self-regarding agent” (Dennett, 239). We attribute intentions to the thing, to help predict its behavior.

But, Dennett admits that if intrinsic essences were real, there could be real, intrinsic meanings to behaviors such as speech, writings, and gestures. He also recognizes the importance of Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionism, which also denies essences. Without an intrinsic meaning in the text, its meaning is just our interpretation. For Dennett, thoughts and speech are brain-writings, which are subject to interpretation, just like any other text.

Assessment

But, what then should we make of naturalism’s claims about the objectively real world being physical, that we are just our bodies, and that naturalism is true? At best, these are nothing but interpretations. Indeed, all our scientific observations and all our beliefs are just interpretations. But, of what? If everything is interpretation, we seem to face an infinite regress, without a way to even get started with accessing reality itself.

Additionally, interpretations also seem to be of or about something. That is, they too seem to have intentionality. But, without that being real, there are no interpretations. So, it seems that on naturalism (and not just Dennett’s version), there are not even any interpretations, or conceptualizations. Yet, without concepts, there are no beliefs, for beliefs require concepts. And without beliefs (which also are about things), there is no knowledge of the facts of reality. That knowledge is justified true belief – but without beliefs, there is no knowledge. So, naturalism cannot give us knowledge.

But, surely there are many things about reality that we do know. And so, naturalism must be false.

For Further Reading

Daniel C. Dennett, “Dennett, Daniel C.,” A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind: Blackwell Companions to Philosophy, ed. Samuel Guttenplan; see also his The Intentional Stance

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 6