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Making Sense of Morality: Error Theory

Various ethical terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Naturalism and Error Theory

Still another kind of naturalistic moral cognitivism is error theory, which has been defended by J. L. Mackie (d. 1981) and Richard Joyce (b. 1966). Mackie used two arguments for his view. First, the argument from relativity maintains that empirically, there are many moral differences amongst people. For him, the best explanation is that moral judgments are tied to different forms (or ways) of life, each of which has its way of interpreting reality. Second, the argument from queerness says that, if objectively real, moral qualities would be very bizarre things in an otherwise naturalistic world. Since we know natural kinds of things empirically, to know objectively real, intrinsically moral properties would require some extraordinary faculty.

Moreover, moral discourse is dependent upon institutional facts. Unlike brute facts about the world itself, which are natural, institutional facts are social constructs, due to how people in various societies (or forms of life) have constructed their institutions and their rules that guide peoples’ actions, including moral discourse. When people speak as though morals are objectively real and not dependent on their social, institutional settings, they show that moral discourse really is filled with error.

Joyce follows Mackie in that there are no independently real moral facts. Still, as a kind of moral cognitivism, error theorists do maintain that we do make moral judgments. However, since there are no real moral qualities, these claims are systematically false and thus filled with error.

Still, Joyce thinks that error theory does not demand that people give up engaging in moral speech. It is just that, to be consistent, their speech act is only making an assertion. They are not believing these moral claims to be true. Additionally, since error theorists reject the existence of any real moral properties, they deny that any action is moral or immoral. Nevertheless, they still can oppose others’ actions, for that need not require that they believe objective moral properties exist.

Assessment

Error theorists consistently hold that on naturalism, there are no intrinsically moral properties. This naturalistic view of what morals are trades upon language use. They are just ways of speaking according to the “grammar” (or, rules) of a given people that allows them to use moral discourse, yet while (apparently) avoiding the reality of morals.

Now, we will see when we explore ethical relativism that while there is a fact of moral diversity amongst people and cultures, nonetheless those differences may not be as wide or deep as we have been taught. Instead, we can identify common morals that may be applied differently (e.g., how people in one culture show respect for their elders, versus how people in another culture do so). Further, just because there is a descriptive fact of diversity, that alone does not give us ethical relativism, which is a normative thesis.

Granted, too, irreducibly moral properties would be rather “queer” given naturalism. But, perhaps there are independent reasons why we should question that assumption. In later essays, I will suggest a few such reasons.

Moreover, it is true that we may speak in ways that do not necessarily commit us to the reality of things we are talking about. Generally, mere word uses do not have power to cause things to come into existence (except, for instance, stories). A scientific example was talk of phlogiston to explain combustion. Later, however, scientists discovered it was not real; instead, oxygen was what was involved.

 Further, error theory does not explain why we find morality to be such a ubiquitous aspect of life. After all, why talk morally if there are no morals? While error theory explains why we can talk morally, given naturalism, it still does not give us an adequate explanation of what morals are. If they are just the way we use words, then we can change morals by changing how we talk. In that case, murder could become right, and justice could become bad. But surely that is false.

For Further Reading

Richard Joyce, “Mackie’s arguments for the moral error theory,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 5

Making Sense of Morality: Introduction

Our Moral Landscape

Today, in the west, we live in a time with many different moral “voices” and competing claims. When I was a graduate student in Religion and Social Ethics at the University of Southern California from 1995-2000, this was quickly apparent. Many of my fellow grad students rejected any kind of objectively real morals. Instead, they saw morals as their own construct, which were based on a wide range of preferred views. One person, a Reformed Jew, tried to integrate her religious tradition with the insights of Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionism and the sociology of knowledge. Many rejected their Catholic roots and instead embraced some form of critical theory, which is deeply liberationist in spirit. Some followed Foucault and queer theory, while others embraced Nietzsche. Still others followed various feminist theorists.

Like them, many people think morality is simply “up to us”; morals are just particular to individuals or communities. Indeed, they are deeply suspicious of any claims that there are morals that transcend and exist independently of us. They think that to impose others’ morals, including “objective” ones, on people is deeply imperialistic and oppressive. After all, who are you to say what is right or wrong?

There also are different social visions that align with these moral viewpoints. For example, progressives seem to be secular, such that morals for society should be based on secular, public reasons, not narrow, sectarian, or religious reasons. Otherwise, how could we come together and be a society in which there are so many different, private moral visions?

Shaping Influences

Now, for those influenced by western thought, and especially those who have grown up in the west, it easily can seem that not only is this moral diversity the way things are, but also the way things should be. After all, in the west (and especially the U. S.), we prize the value of autonomy, which we understand as being free to determine our own lives. Coupled with the view that morals are basically “up to us,” we should expect there to be an irreducible plurality of viewpoints, norms, and values.

Over time, in the west a large number of competing moral theories have been advanced. But these did not come out of a vacuum. They have a history with many shaping influences, leading even to the mindset that morals are up to us. One of the things I will do in this series is to explore those shaping factors. Two of them are the Scientific Revolution, and the “fact-value split” in the late 1700s.

Core Morals

Despite this great plurality of ethical views, it still seems there are at least some core morals all people simply know to be valid. For instance, people want justice to be done. They may disagree about what constitutes justice, or their theories about justice. But, it seems people know that justice is good and should be done. Love is another virtue people know to be good. They may disagree about what the loving action should be, but they still seem to agree that we should be loving. 

Besides these virtues, there are some principles that people simply seem to know are right. For instance, it seems people simply know murder is wrong. While some may disagree about what act should count as murder, nevertheless, we know that murder (as the intentional taking of an innocent person’s life) is wrong. I would add that rape is wrong too. These four morals seem to be core –we simply seem to know they are valid.

Some might add other moral principles and values to that short list. For example, for many, it is clear that genocide and chattel slavery are wrong. In this series, I will focus on those four core morals. I will look at the various types of ethical views in western historical context, to see if they can preserve those core morals. If a theory cannot do that, then it seems we should reject it. In that process, a key question I will ask is this: what kind of thing are these core morals? But, before I start that survey, I will explore the influences from the Scientific Revolution on our ethical thinking.

Assessing McLaren et al on the Soul, Part 2

In my previous post, I argued that by rejecting the soul, McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, and Jones lack a basis for our being able to be the same person who can grow and develop over time. This has several implications.

First, our being able to tell a narrative about one’s life presupposes that that person remains literally the identical person through those changes. Yet, I also argued that without an essence (which is the soul), we are identical to just a set (or bundle) of qualities at a given time. If the set changes in membership from one time to the next, then those two sets are not identical. So, suppose I grow in my interpersonal relationships. Then the set of qualities that constitutes me at the time beforehand will not be identical to the set when those qualities have been developed. In that case, I will have ceased to exist, and a new person will have taken my place. Yet, if so, then I cannot grow in relationships, much less virtues or anything else.

Second, we will not be able to be morally responsible for our actions. Suppose an employer treats an employee unjustly (say, by using sexually harassing remarks). Upon the employee’s making a report, an investigation is launched. Yet, during this time, the employer has changed in some way; e.g., that person has been diagnosed with a disease. If we are nothing but the set of all our properties at a given time, then if there is a change in the members of the set, the new set is literally not the same as the former one. Thus, the person who harassed the other is no longer the same person. If so, it would seem to be immoral to hold that new person accountable for another’s actions.

Third, consider the prospects for our resurrection from the dead and eternal life. Clearly, our resurrection depends upon Jesus’ own resurrection. Now, as evangelicals hold, Jesus was fully God and fully human. Yet, on these emergents’ views, being fully human means ontologically we are just physical beings. If so, then did Jesus survive His own death as a human? (For surely as God, He cannot die.)

It seems not, for Jesus’ own resurrected body had different qualities than His body before death. (For one, after His resurrection, He could pass through solid walls.) But, this means that Jesus’ identity as a man did not remain the same through these important changes. If this is so, then it seems that Jesus did not survive His own death, but a different human replaced Him.   

That result would be disastrous for Christians. If Jesus did not survive His own death, then surely we will not either. Moreover, death wins after all.

But, let’s waive that concern for the sake of another argument. Suppose we are resurrected somehow on this view. According to McLaren and others, God will re-member us at the resurrection: “All the momentary members of our life story … will be re-membered, reunited, in God’s memory.”[1]Though our bodies will be different, God will remember our stories, and He will reunite our bodies with our stories.

Can this move alleviate the problem at hand? I don’t think so; for, what is a story? For it to be the basis for our being the same person through change, it needs to remain essentially the same through time and change. For one narrative to be identical to another, they have to have all their parts in common. Yet, biographical stories keep changing throughout a person’s life. So, an appeal to one’s story will not solve this problem of maintaining one’s personal identity and surviving death.

This result comes from their rejection of an essence to human beings, about whom a story can be told. But our identity does not depend upon one’s narrative; rather, one’s narrative trades upon the deeper reality of the identity of the person, which is due to his or her essence (i.e., the soul).   

[1] Brian McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 153.

Assessing McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, & Jones 1

Previously, I gave summaries of their updated views. Now, I shift to some assessment. Based on his interpretation of Plato and Aristotle, McLaren claims Christians have come to understand Eden pre-fall as a perfect, unchanging state, and thus no story. For him, this runs counter to the human story, for it’s one of evolutionary development, with God working with us to help us mature.

Overall, like some others, McLaren thinks Greek philosophy contaminated Christianity by introducing many destructive dualisms. The Greek story corrupted the holistic emphasis found in the Jewish scriptures, leading Christianity astray. This move allows McLaren to explain many Christians’ emphasis upon saving the soul so it goes to heaven when the body dies by linking it to the (supposed) Platonic emphasis of the inherent superiority of the immaterial over the material. He also uses it to explain the inherited dualism between Creator and creation. And, he explains Christian exclusiveness by connecting it with Roman imperialism. He thinks the Roman mindset of the superiority of its way of life, and Roman colonization of barbarians, has contributed to Christian arrogance.

But there are some major problems with this analysis. First, contrary to McLaren, Plato did not think of human beings as static and unchanging, or that what exists in physical reality is just an illusion. Plato did believe an immaterial, essential nature, like humanness, itself does not change, but particular flesh-and-blood humans, who share in humanness, can and should grow in their capacities (e.g., the virtues). So, humans are not static on Plato’s view.

Moreover, McLaren portrays Aristotle as believing reality consists of changing material stuff; what doesn’t change are words we use for things. But, this isn’t Aristotle’s view; he affirmed the reality of our individual essential nature (our soul). In terms of our essential capacities, the soul is unchanging and thus grounds one’s personal identity through time and change. Without that sameness of person, how could there be a story that’s about someone? But, Aristotle also developed in detail how we can grow in the virtues. In this way, we can change, and yet remain the same person throughout those changes.

Furthermore, McLaren misuses Aristotle to justify his Greco-Roman narrative. For Aristotle, it is not bad that things change. Instead, we can grow toward our true goal (telos) through change. Importantly, then, it isn’t true that by embracing (even if implicitly) Aristotle’s dualistic metaphysics, of our being a unity of a body and soul, that Christians have bought into a view that is negative or bad. Aristotle’s metaphysical views can help explain how Adam and Eve could develop and grow, and yet remain the same persons, even before the fall. 

This is a crucial issue for McLaren’s Greco-Roman version of the gospel story we supposedly have received today. McLaren stakes his treatment of the fall therein on his view of Aristotle, but he misunderstands him.

Yet, it is commonplace for McLaren, Pagitt, and others to claim that Greek philosophy, with its dualisms, has corrupted Christianity. What might motivate this claim? First, it allows them to develop a view of humans (and creation) that is holistic, in which we are made of one kind of thing (physical), and then extend that to how we are related to God already – we are in God.

Second, it allows them to avoid universals (like a literally common human essence) and instead embrace nominalism. Plato and Aristotle both embraced universals – qualities that are essentially immaterial in themselves and yet are a one-in-many. Take the virtue of justice: as a universal, it is one thing. Yet, it can (and should) be instanced in many people. In contrast, on nominalism everything is particular, a position which will affect their views in several ways. This means there can’t be a literally common human nature we all share. Instead, there are just many individuals that we may call humans. Nor is there justice; there are only many justices (or, what different peoples call justice).

In my next post, I’ll explore how their views about what is real, including what kind of thing humans are, will have serious implications, including for our hope of the resurrection.