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One argument against moral realism says something like: Moral properties are so queer! They'd be completely unlike anything else in the universe in terms of their properties.

But I don't really understand the force of this argument. Quarks (or whatever fundamental particles are) are entirely unique too. They're unlike anything else in the universe. Sure, they might be more numerous, but that's hardly relevant.

So why would we think that the uniqueness of moral properties makes them unlikely to exist? Fundamentally, the universe must consist of various unique kinds of properties and entities. That's what makes such entities and properties fundamental.

Cohen, says, here (pdf, p2), that:
"Do not suppose that, because lamentation is perennial, it's misplaced. Anti-conservatives say, 'Oh, well, people have always said that things are getting worse', and anti-conservatives mean thereby to convey that the conservative lamentation expresses an illusion. But it is entirely possible that at any rate certain kinds of things have always been worse than they were before".

I'm going to address this sentence in its own right. It might well be the case that by "certain kinds of things" Cohen means things other than those I'll explore. In short, Cohen is possibly not guilty of the criticism I raise here.

So it's quite true that some people like to point out that people always think that things are getting worse; society is going to the dogs now in a way it never did when member-of-generation was young. If people have always said this, it's tempting to claim that it's said for content-independent reasons. People grumble because they like grumbling or because humans are hardwired to dislike change more as they get older.

If it's content independent, then it's not worth worrying about. Things can get worse - we should not ignore that possibility! But a low level of moaning from some corners of society is perfectly normal, and nothing to get worried about.

Cohen objects to this, because it's possible that things have always been getting worse. But this is very clearly not the claim that conservatives make. Modern "conservatives" might want to hark back to the 50's, perhaps the Victorian period. At most, let's imagine they hark back to the middle-ages, when the Church had power. Let's be honest: I bet people at all of those times also moaned that things weren't what they used to be. Perhaps conservatives should hark back to the earliest point in human history when no-one moaned? This is very unlikely to be reasonable.

Conservatives usually want to resurrect a relatively recent period in history. But there's no real reason to think that their current moaning about the glory we had fifty years ago is any more valid than the moaning that happened fifty years ago about the glory we had one-hundred years ago.

One standard argument for moral relativism goes something like this: No-one agrees on what's morally true. If there were a truth, then they'd agree. Therefore, there is no universal moral truth.

I'm inclined to think that this is unsound. Still, if it were sound, what would follow?

The problem is that there's also no agreement on whether or not there is objective moral truth. There's wide disagreement on whether morality is relative or universal. But, so the argument goes, if there were a universal truth of the matter, we'd agree. Therefore, there is no universal fact about whether or not moral relativism is true or false.

So we also ought to be second-order relativists about whether or not first-order moral relativism is true. Therefore, the argument shows that first-order relativism cannot possibly be true.

(I've pursued the argument as one in favour of moral relativism. It's sometimes used to support an error theory instead. My remarks would apply analogously.)

[This appeared on my old blog]

"We should all agree that each of us is bound to show kindness to his parents and spouse and children, and to other kinsmen in a less degree: and to those who have rendered services to him, and any others whom he may have admitted to his intimacy and called friends: and to neighbours and to fellow-countrymen more than others: and perhaps we may say to those of our own race more than to black or yellow men, and generally to human beings in proportion to their affinity to ourselves."
(Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics, Book 3, Chapter 4, Section 3)

Many people endorse partiality; the idea that we have special obligations towards some groups of people - such as towards your family, or to your country. But do we have an obligation of partiality towards anyone you share any kind of affinity to, no matter how arbitrary? Do I have special obligations to all bloggers? To philosophy bloggers? To people called Al? To people of my race?

I see it as difficult to justify partiality, due to the very simple thought that there's something unfair about favouring people to whom you happen to have some personal connection.

But with the above in mind, I also tend to think that it's difficult to justify partiality because any justification must be careful not to establish too much.

I've previously pursued one form of epistemic scepticism about morals. Here's another, more limited case.

When one acts, one usually has some justification in mind. "I just made a cup of coffee because I was thirsty and needed to wake up". Sometimes though, one is fooled, and rationalises rather than justifies. "I just got angry because it is better that Bloggs realises that his actions were inappropriate". Here, what is offered is meant to be a justification, but more impartial observers can sometimes spot that the action was really bad, and the speaker has simply generously ascribed better motives onto themselves than they really had.

But the problem is that such rationalisations can really be convincing. I know that I've been certain that I did something for a certain reason, and only years later realised that I was covering up my own faults by pretending that they were well-planned right actions. If right actions are indistinguishable from rationalisations, then perhaps one rarely knows whether oneself is acting for good reasons or not.

Now, you might think that this scepticism is very limited in application, since others can usually spot the difference between justification and rationalisation. But it's possible to worry that some common justifications are actually rationalisations of universal, but negative, human traits. To take an example (and no more than that without appropriate evidence to support it), perhaps beliefs about how morality cannot demand that people in the western world give most of their savings away in aid to the third world are simply post-hoc rationalisations of the fact that we're terrible at actually being quite so charitable.

Now this particular example isn't the point. The point is that the possibility of rationalisation might undermine our faith that we are justified in vast swathes of the moral judgements that we make. That's worrying.

"Being a social scientist is a pretty thankless job, though, particuarly among the ever-cynical English, who generally dismiss all of our findings as either obvious (when they accord with 'common knowledge') or rubbish (when they challenge some tenet of popular wisdom) or mumbo-jumbo (when it is not clear when sin has been committed, as the findings are couched in incomprohensible academic jargon)." (Kate Fox's "Watching the English", p201)

More on this fun book soon, though I thought this was worth its own post. Of course, there's no shortage of philosophers who have little time for some sociology. But we must sympathise with them in this respect at least. Trying to discuss philosophy with those who haven't studied it generally descends into claims that you don't do anything interesting (for arguing that common sense is correct) or that you're being absurd (for arguing that common sense is incorrect).

On the other hand, I've previously found it helpful to explain philosophy as the critical study of common sense. It's simplistic, but it sometimes gets the gist accross reasonably well.

The classic dilemma:
Either:
(1) God's will determines goodness.
Or:
(2) Goodness determines God's will.

On (1), moral goodness is too arbitrary. If God commanded murder, on this picture, murder would be right. Further, God's "benevolence" is entirely superficial: He'd be just as praiseworthily good for doing the exact reverse of what he does.

On (2), God's power is diminished. He is not the author of the universe. He's a mere paperboy for moral reality.

I tend to think that the dilemma is fatal for some forms of supernaturalism. However, one can still believe in some gods if you accept (2). It rules out all-powerful or all-creating gods, but other gods may not fit these criteria.

One entertaining suggestion I gleaned from one of my students this semester is that (1) is true, but that this is not inexplicable. They suggested that God may have created many universes, each with some arbitrary set of moral laws. The reason that the human race still lives in ours is because we happen to be in a universe in which God happened to command reasonably sensible moral laws for us.

This seems analogous to the standard response to the fine-tuning argument: Our moral/physical laws are sensible, because if they were not, we would not be here to debate them. So God had no reason for commanding as he did, but the fact that we live in a universe with sensible moral laws is not inexplicable.

"people keep telling me that my penchant for intellectual honesty is too naive and idealistic to be worth adhering to in the real world of politics. We've gotta play dirty if we want to win. My worry is, when we look at where playing dirty might get us, it doesn't look to me much like victory at all." (Richard Chappell, here)

I've previously found that Richard and I differ on this matter. I certainly don't take some extreme view that politics is always about playing dirty or playing to win. No - I find most modern politics deeply disturbing for this tendency to pander to irrationality.

But what sets us apart is that I think one can also go too far in the other direction. Politics, and popular opinion, are riddled with irrationalities. If you refused to ever pander to these, I doubt you could ever secure your ends to any degree. Candid discussion can result in a horrible sensationalist discussion of the issue, with deep polarisation and a general lack of sense. People often lack sense (All people that is, before someone accuses me of elitism).

Now, Richard is quite correct that playing dirty can change your destination. For example, a liberal party that uses not-so-liberal means to gain power isn't really going to be a force for liberalism. Accepting campaign money from corporations, for instance, might be a necessary condition of gaining power, but one that warps the ends you must pursue once you're there.

This is all very true. But as always, one must look for the least-bad option, not simply avoid the option that has bad consequences attached. And failing to adopt dirty means can (sometimes, not always) result in worse policy being introduced through dirty means anyway. Again, taking our example, a liberal party gaining power through money received in return for corporate advantages is bad. Yet it's not so bad as a bigoted party gaining power through money received in return for corporate advantages. That's the relevant comparison.

(Note that the pursuit of liberalism via money from corporations is only an example. It would be sensible to divorce this discussion from discussion of which means and ends are actually bad)

In short, Richard is almost certainly correct that playing dirty is terrible. But one cannot ignore the fact that it may be the least bad option, terrible though it is. Perhaps parties are currently playing unecessarily dirtily (that's the kind of factual question that I don't think philosophers are equipped to answer). But there is also a limit to how cleanly they ought to fight.

"Some of the UK's best-selling chocolate bars, such as Mars and Twix, will no longer be suitable for vegetarians. [...] owner Masterfoods said it had started to use animal product rennet to make its chocolate products."

""If the customer is an extremely strict vegetarian, then we are sorry the products are no longer suitable, but a less strict vegetarian should enjoy our chocolate," said Paul Goalby, corporate affairs manager for Masterfoods." (BBC)

Ah yes, it's only extreme vegetarians who will be affected. All other vegetarians - i.e. those that eat animals - can continue to eat these products.

Good recovery Masterfoods.

Philosophy is a pain. I never know the difference between my failing to understand something, and when something is internally confused. I find this clearest with the open question argument. I'm inclined to think that it's confused, but I really couldn't rule out that I'm missing something. Maybe others can help.

The open question argument, as I understand it:
1) If there is a true definition of something, then it is inconceivable to suggest that the definition is wrong. (e.g. One cannot sensibly debate whether all unmarried males are bachelors)
2) It will always be conceivable to dispute definitions of "good"

Therefore:
3) There is no definition for "good"

Obviously, it is, in a sense, inconceivable to deny a logical or semantic truth (i.e. (1)). But in the epistemic sense, it does seem as though humans can get logical and semantic truths wrong. It is epistemically conceivable to dispute logical and semantic truths. Wikipedia tells me that the set of natural numbers may be defined thus (Frege, Russell): "a natural number is the equivalence class of all sets under the relation of equinumerosity." Now this definition may be false, but is it really doomed from the outset, given that it's epistemically conceivable to deny it? Yet it claims the status of a semantic or logical truth. More broadly, this is termed the paradox of analysis: mere analysis of meaning can provide interesting results.

Perhaps in response to this, one could claim that with a full understanding of the concepts involved in the definition of natural numbers given above, it really would be inconceivable to deny it. But this leaves an obvious response to the open question argument: Why not claim that we don't fully understand the concept "good" or the concepts into which it is definable?

Further, (2) represents a very strong claim. How do we know in advance that it will always be conceivable to dispute any definition of "good"? Obviously the definitions so far have been disputable, but perhaps that just tells us what we know already: We've yet to find the right answer. No induction is possible here. But as some kind of a priori truth, I just can't see how one would justify this premise.

Is this understanding the open question argument the best? Are the criticisms valid and sound?

I'll repeat my standard qualification: There may be other reasons to think that good is indefinable. In fact, I'm tempted to say that there are. But the open question argument is not one.