Introduction

Immanuel Kant (d. 1804) thought all knowledge begins with sense experience. However, as a nominalist, there are no literally identical qualities in experiences. Moreover, experiences always show us what contingently the case is. These are a posteriori truths (ones known by experience).

Yet, he also wanted to preserve a major role for reason. To him, there also are a priori truths, which are known by reason independently of experience. There are two kinds of a priori truths: analytic a priori truths (ones true by definition; e.g., a bachelor is an unmarried male), and synthetic a priori truths, which are true due to how the world is. So, for him there are universal and necessary truths.

Unlike many we surveyed before Hobbes, Kant did not conceive of knowledge as the mind’s matching up with reality. Instead, it is an activity which generates knowledge. For him, we cannot know things as they are really are in themselves, but only as they appear to us.

This move led him to posit two realms, that of experience (the phenomena) and that of reality as it is apart from our experience (the noumena). But, if all experiences are discrete and there are no universal, necessary qualities given in experience, how can we share in a common, intersubjective world? Kant posited that a transcendent mind (not God) constructed the same world in each of us.

Kant’s Ethics

Kant conceived of morals as categorical, or absolute, commands. They are valid independently of experience. Therefore, morals could not be dependent upon the contingent, phenomenal realm. Morals are part of the noumena, and as such, they are known by reason. But as a nominalist, he could not appeal to transcendent, objectively real, universal morals like Plato. Instead, he believed that we should self-legislate a maxim (plan of action) that would apply universally. That is, we would generalize a maxim to be applicable for all people, a move fitting with nominalism.

By self-legislating morals, we are being autonomous. Why should we obey the moral law? Though he was raised as a Pietist, it was not out of love for God. Rather, we should do our duty for duty’s sake, out of pure respect for the moral law. By acting autonomously, we live out the categorical imperative. He gave it different formulations. For example, whatever I choose to do, I should will it to be universal for everyone. Additionally, we always should treat all humans (including ourselves) as an end, and never just as a means to an end. Fittingly, the goal of ethics is to develop a good will that acts autonomously and independently of consequences.

Kant made several posits to make his system “work.” For example, we should act as if God exists to make full sense of morals. Also, to achieve a holy will, the soul must be immortal; and to freely will our maxims, we need free will. Yet, none of these are empirically knowable, so it seems they are postulates.

Kant’s Legacy

Kant’s ethics has endured. His reasoning influences bioethics with the principles of autonomy, justice, beneficence, and nonmaleficence. He also tried to provide universal morals and respect of persons.

Kant believed we cannot know things as they really are in themselves, but only as they appear to us. Many take that idea as “settled.” However, suppose we see a tiger. For him, we cannot see the tiger, but only as it appears to us. Call that A₁. But, we cannot see A₁ as it is, but only as it appears to us (A₂). The same result repeats without end. Disastrously, it seems we cannot get started to know anything empirically. Yet, if all knowledge begins with sense experience, there’s no knowledge.

Thus, while Kant tried to preserve universal morality, it is at best just a human construct. In terms of his legacy, people thought he gave much prestige to science, which uses an empirical method. Thereafter, the fact-value split became more entrenched: the sciences give us knowledge of facts, while religion and ethics are just opinions, preferences, and values.

For Further Reading

Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 4

Introduction

David Hume (d. 1776) also was heavily influenced by mechanical atomism and nominalism. So, no two things are identical; everything is particular. He also was a major British empiricist, such that all knowledge comes by the five senses. Moreover, all that we experience are particular sensory impressions. It is not the case that in daily life we experience objects like tables and cars themselves. Rather, from those sense impressions the mind projects those objects due to custom.

Since we cannot sense empirically anything immaterial, Hume’s views lead to a radical skepticism. We could not know God or the human soul is real. Yet, we also cannot sense the mind, so perhaps we should wonder what it is that does the projecting. Nor can we know custom by the five senses, so we could doubt its reality too.

Hume’s Ethics

Applied to morals, they cannot be something immaterial, like many previous ancients and medievals thought, lest we not be able to know them. Additionally, for him, morals are not subject to reason. Reason deals with matters of facts and relations of ideas, he held, but reason cannot tell us what is moral or move us to action. Instead, the prospects of pleasure and pain move us to action, while, in a very move very unlike Aristotle, reason is powerless to do so.

Yet, there is a subordinate role for reason. It can help us figure how to accomplish what we want. Thus, reason is slave of the passions.

There is a major consequence of this view. Consider the sentence, “murder is wrong.” Sentences are empirically knowable. However, many have argued that a proposition is the cognitive content (or meaning) of a sentence. In that case, murder is wrong is a proposition. Now, suppose we deleted that sentence; would we thereby destroy its meaning and that proposition, too? It does not seem so. Moreover, the very same proposition can be expressed in many languages, but that is a characteristic of an immaterial universal, like Plato and Aristotle thought. Such things have an essence, and each universal is one thing, and yet be present in many concrete instances (here, sentences).

This means that for Hume, while sentences are subjects of knowledge, propositions, including moral principles, are not. In these ways, Hume severed facts from morals. That move has been called the fact-value split, which has been with us in the west ever since.

Key for Hume’s morality is the moral sense, or sentiment or feeling. That seems to make an action moral or not. Yet, each feeling is particular and highly individualistic. Also, his ethics seems to be like emotivism, such that moral statements (“murder is wrong”) would be just emotive utterances (e.g., “ugh, murder!”). But, if so, they cannot be true or false, for they are non-cognitive. They are just expressions of feelings.

With this highly individualistic emphasis, Hume’s ethics could seem to lead to anarchy. Yet, he also was quite high on keeping the status quo. To do that, he also held a high place for social order and utility.

Assessment

What then should we make of his ethics, particularly in terms of preserving our core morals? Clearly, the idea that morality is just a matter of each person’s own feelings is very much alive now, especially in the U.S. Still, by gutting morals of their cognitive content, he also removed their normativity. So, murder’s and rape’s wrongness, and justice’s and love’s goodness, would be undermined. All we would have would be expressions of feelings. But those are just descriptive, not normative.

Moreover, on his view, why should a sociopath be prevented from acting on his or her passions? Without any cognitive content to morals, we lose all ability to know what actions we should, or shouldn’t, do. Yet, from our core morals, we know that that is not so. Further, his appeal to social order seems ad hoc, given the rest of his theory.

Next, we will look at Immanuel Kant’s ethics.

For Further Reading

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, and A Treatise of Human Nature R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 4

Introduction

As key thinker behind the shifts in the Scientific Revolution, Thomas Hobbes embraced mechanical atomism and nominalism. A major focus on empirical knowledge also ensued. Not only was his book, Leviathan (1651), shaped by these factors, he also was influenced by the English civil war between Charles I and Parliament.

Hobbes’s Ethics

For Hobbes, humans are just material beings. Fittingly, he thought external objects caused motions in us, and these motions included things like desires and aversions, thoughts, beliefs, and more. An external object causes a motion in us toward it. Such a motion is a desire for something, which he claimed is good. Similarly, aversions were caused by external objects, but they caused motions away from them, which he said were bad.

He also defined the good in terms of self-interest (ethical egoism), which we ought to pursue. Further, we do in fact act in our self-interest (psychological egoism). But, self-interest is not necessarily identical with pleasure.

Hobbes posited that we have a restless desire for power. If people desire the same object, there is conflict. If everyone pursues his or her self-interest, there will be a persistent fear of violence, which he called a state of war.

Now, unlike the views we just surveyed, on materialism, there are no transcendent, objectively real morals. So, acts are not wrong until a humanly-made law forbids it. To preserve a peoples’ safety, they need to form a social contract with a sovereign ruler, or Leviathan, to keep the peace and defend their rights which he would promulgate. The Leviathan would exercise all functions (executive, legislative, and judicial) of government. While this could be a tyrant, Hobbes thought that the sovereign’s body is composed of the people he rules. Since he too would act egoistically, he would act in the peoples’ best interests. 

Only the Leviathan gives rights; there are no natural rights, except the right of nature (to preserve one’s own life). Nor would any other rights be inalienable, for they are given by government. While Hobbes spoke of “natural laws,” they were not objectively real, immaterial laws that we could know by reason. Rather, they were maxims for our lives.

By way of assessment, there are several issues with his ethics. First, there is no room for moral reformers. Whatever the sovereign decrees is law and therefore moral, unless of course he violates peoples’ own right of nature.

Second, Hobbes doesn’t seem to anticipate any problem with material beings making choices, like ceding their rights and forming a social contract. Nor does he see an issue with making rational decisions. Yet, if we are but mechanisms, and even our desires (or aversions), let alone other “mental” states, are caused by the motions external, material objects produce in us, then it seems there is no room for free will. How then can we be ethically responsible for our actions? Likewise, how can we make rational choices to believe the truth?

Third, can his views preserve our core morals: murder and rape are wrong, and justice and love are good? I don’t think so. In a completely material world, things can be exhausted descriptively. But while careful descriptions of the various factors involved in ethical decision-making is important, ethics involves what we ought, or ought not, do or be. Ethics is a normative discipline, but Hobbes’s materialism seems unable to account for that.

Finally, consider what is good (or bad) in terms of Hobbesian motions. Murder’s or rape’s wrongness would be based on the motions an object (presumably the intended victim) caused in the perpetrator. According to Hobbes, something morally wrong would be a motion away from something. But that is not what happens in acts of murder or rape; the perpetrator moves toward the victim, which, on Hobbes’s view, would be good. Moreover, it seems the victim is the one to be blamed, for that person caused the motions in the perpetrator! Further, justice is more than motions; both a just and an unjust act could involve motions toward someone, or something. So, tellingly, it seems Hobbes’s theory cannot preserve our core morals.

For Further Reading

Hobbes, Leviathan

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 4

Introduction

Like we have seen with Thomas Aquinas, the Scholastics’ Aristotelianism in the Middle Ages stressed metaphysics, especially real, immaterial, and universal qualities. This applied not only to human nature, but also to virtues and moral principles. As universals, many particular, individual humans can exemplify the very same quality (a one-in-many).

The Shift

With this stress upon universals and their essential natures, Aristotelianism lent itself to a more a priori (in-principle), deductive approach to science. But, this position started to shift with William of Ockham (d. 1347). Ockham rejected universals, and in its place embraced nominalism. Unlike universals, nominalism maintains that everything is particular. For instance, while we may speak of the virtue of justice, each instance of justice is particular, and they do not share literally the identical quality. Now, Plato’s universals, which held that universals (or forms) themselves are not located in space and time, and this would fit with their being immaterial. But, nominalism rejects that view. On it, all particulars are located in space and time. That implies that they are material and sense perceptible.

About two and one-half centuries later, two key philosophers in the early modern period, Pierre Gassendi (d. 1655) and Thomas Hobbes (d. 1679), embraced nominalism. Gassendi also revived Democritus’ atomism, on which the material world is made up of atoms in the void. Hobbes and Gassendi also adopted a mechanical view of the universe: it is a large-scale machine, and so are the things within it. These views shift away the reality of immaterial things and embrace instead materialism.

These philosophers helped set a basis for natural philosophy (science) in the emerging modern era. Johannes Kepler (d. 1630) adopted the mechanical view, and scientists such as Francis Bacon (d. 1626), Galileo Galilei (d. 1642), Robert Boyle (d. 1691), and Isaac Newton (d. 1727) endorsed mechanical atomism. Yet, there was a key difference in the atomism of this period from that of Democritus. Probably due to the influence of Christianity in Europe in this time, people tended to think that atomism applied only to the material realm, but not the spiritual one. They still had room for the reality of minds, souls, angels, and God.

The qualities of matter (e.g., size, shape, quantity, and location) were thought to be primary qualities. In contrast, the qualities of the spiritual realm (e.g., colors, tastes, or odors) were considered to be secondary qualities. Secondary qualities either were subjective qualities in the mind of an observer, or words that people used. In other words, they did not exist objectively.

Here, we must note something of immense importance. It was not scientific discoveries which drove this shift away from universals and a dualistic view of reality. Instead, it largely was due to the adoption of philosophical theories, namely, nominalism and mechanical atomism.

The Rise of a New Scientific Methodology

What is the significance of this shift? Boyle illustrates it well; he thought secondary qualities and Aristotelian universals were unintelligible due to what he conceived to be real in the material world. Of course, that conception was informed deeply by mechanical atomism and nominalism.

Instead of the Aristotelian paradigm, a new scientific methodology developed. It stressed empirical observation of particular, material things. On the new paradigm, things did not have essences that necessitated certain causal effects. Instead, the new scientific methodology focused on contingent causes and induction. While Aristotelianism had encountered empirical problems (e.g., the discovery of new species of which he did not know), the new methodology provided an advancement. Instead of relying overly on metaphysical theories, it emphasized the importance of empirical observation of the world.

Conclusion

These shifts in the nature of what is real, and how we know it, became deeply entrenched, and they affected ethics too. Next, I will look at Hobbes’s ethics. The key question will be: can his ethics preserve core morals?

For Further Reading

Alan Chalmers, “Atomism from the 17^th to the 20^th Century,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atomism-modern/

Eva Del Soldato, “Natural Philosophy in the Renaissance,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natphil-ren/.

Galileo Galilei, Il Saggiatore [The Assayer], in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo. https://www.princeton.edu/~hos/h291/assayer.htm#_ftn19. Jürgen Klein, “Francis Bacon.” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/francis-bacon/

A Spectrum of Views

In this period between the ancient Greeks and the Scientific Revolution, there also was the rise of Islamic ethics. In Islam’s “classical” period, several schools of thought developed, which cover an epistemological spectrum of how we know what is right. At one end were the rationalists, including Avicenna and Averroes. In their view, moral truths exist objectively, even apart from Allah. Reason can discover moral truths, which does not conflict with revelation.

Next along this spectrum were the Mutazalites. For them, too, morals exist objectively. We can know them from the Qur’an, the Traditions of Mohammed, or independent reason. Some thought we could know morals independently of revelation. Further, they reasoned that theistic voluntarism (morality is based solely on Allah’s will) could lead to some immoral conclusions.

In response, Sunni theologians (or traditionalists) held the sovereignty of Allah as their supreme principle. They disputed the Mutazalites’ view that there are objectively real moral principles that even Allah follows. Such truths would exist independently of Allah’s sovereign will. In effect, independent reason limited Allah’s power, and objective morals had to be rejected. For Ashari, morals are what Allah commands, which ultimately we know only from revelation.

For traditionalists, ethics is one of action (doing Allah’s will). While there has been room for virtue in Islamic ethics, for traditionalists, virtues are not ends in themselves. Instead, the beginning of Islamic ethics is submission, and the end is obedience. Since the traditionalist view realizes both the fundamental point of Allah’s omnipotence, as well as revelation as the basis for knowing what is right, it is easy to see how this view came to dominate.

So, can the traditionalist view preserve these core morals? Yes, but only if Allah so wills that they are valid. But, there are no limits on Allah’s sovereignty, as is the case with the Judeo-Christian God’s character, so conceivably Allah could will they are invalid, and we would have no basis for complaint.

For Further Reading

George F. Hourani, Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 3