[lit-ideas] Re: Grice and Foot on the foundations of morality
- From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2010 11:20:28 +0700
Walter O. wrote:
"In other words, rightness is internally related to belief. Nothing in
the world decides the rightness or wrongness of a moral claim - only
rational belief can do that. On this constructivist (anti-realist)
conception, what makes slavery, for example, morally wrong, is that
not all persons affected by a maxim of slavery could agree to it,
believe it to be justifiable. The moral wrongness of slavery has
nothing to do with any 'intrinsic' or 'worldly' or 'empirical' feature
of human beings that fails to be recognized by a maxim of slavery."
I wonder about this. It seems to me that Walter is both correct and
mistaken in his comments here. The universalizability of moral maxims
is certainly part of our understanding slavery as morally wrong.
However, it seems to me a mistake to claim that the moral wrongness of
slavery has nothing to do some other feature of human beings. Let me
use the analogy of laws to tease out the mistake.
In a liberal democracy, what makes an act a crime, that is legally
prohibited, are laws passed by representatives of the citizens.
Because the laws come from a representative body, the laws are
understood as the universalization of a general will. The lawfulness
of these laws comes from the fact that all citizens could accept
themselves as legislators and subjects of these laws. However, that
Canada has the laws it has, and the U.S. the laws it has, is a
consequence of the experiences of Canadians and Americans, so that the
laws of Canada are different from that of the U.S. The Canadian
experience of becoming a nation was different from that of the U.S.
and so there are differences in Constitutions and laws. The
lawfulness of laws - that all citizens could accept themselves as
legislators and subjects of these laws - in both Canada and the U.S.
are necessarily identical. The legal systems and laws in Canada and
the U.S. are necessarily different.
So long as we are talking about the lawfulness of laws - or the
rightness/wrongness of actions - then I agree with Walter that this
"has nothing to do with any 'intrinsic' or 'worldly' or 'empirical'
feature of human beings". Borrowing from Kant, this talk belongs to
pure practical reason. However, if we begin to talk about the
morality of specific actions, like slavery, then we move, to some
degree, into the realm of experience, and with it, empirical features
of human beings. Just as the Canadian and U.S. legal systems differ
as a result of differing historical contingencies, so also will there
be different moral judgments on the points of slavery. It is possible
to assert that "what makes slavery, for example, morally wrong, is
that not all persons affected by a maxim of slavery could agree to it,
believe it to be justifiable" - this is its moral wrongness - and
still differ about the moral wrongness of slavery in Canada or the
U.S.
The empirical contexts within which we assert the moral wrongness of
slavery is crucial for making moral judgments in a manner that is
analogous to the debates surrounding the legislation of laws. If,
then, we are talking about the lawfulness of slavery - or the
rightness/wrongness of slavery - then I think Walter is mistaken.
Suggesting that "the moral wrongness of slavery has nothing to do with
any 'intrinsic' or 'worldly' or 'empirical' feature of human beings
that fails to be recognized by a maxim of slavery" is akin to
suggesting that the legislation of laws concerning slavery, by
democratically elected representatives, has nothing to do with any
'worldly' or 'empirical' will or wishes of citizens that can't be
found in the laws of Canada or the U.S. Put more simply, it seems to
me that an analogy to Walter's argument would be to claim that all we
need to know about the illegality of slavery in the U.S. is to study
the current laws on the books now. However, this synchronic approach
to moral judgments or laws ignores the fact that moral judgments and
laws have histories. The specifics surrounding our judgments
concerning slavery - what is slavery? what makes slavery wrong? who is
a slave? - have changed over time as have the laws of the U.S. It is
this historical, contextual quality of moral judgments that Walter
ignores when he claims that the moral wrongness of aspects of
experience have nothing to with, well, experience.
Again, in one sense, that of the lawfulness of laws, Walter is
correct. The moral rightness or wrongness of moral judgments do not
depend on any aspect of experience. However, when we are considering
either the wrongness or illegality of slavery in the U.S., it is a
mistake to think that all there is to say on the subject is what we
can find in the categorical imperative or in law books. Slavery
belongs to experience and so any moral judgment regarding slavery will
be, in some sense, dependent on the worldly and empirical features of
human beings. The wrongness of slavery is, therefore, both a result
of necessity and contingency
Both necessarily and contingently,
Phil Enns
Indonesia
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