[lit-ideas] Re: The universal applicability of moral judgments
- From: Eric Dean <ecdean99@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 02:44:34 +0000
Back in DC and with Thanksgiving behind us, I return to Walter's comments.
Walter writes:
> ----------------> Maxims are not T or F in any recognizable sense of those
> terms. Their moral modalities are "morally permissible," "impermissible" and
> "don't even think about it." (The latter is aptly named "contradiction in
> conception.") The form of a maxim is either universalizable or not. (This has
> nothing to do with "universal acceptance" of a maxim, which is an empirical
> matter.)
OK; I think I take the point. A moral maxim is something in the imperative
voice, essentially, and the relevant question is not whether it is true or
false but whether the expressed injunction applies. A universal maxim is one
which would always apply, as Walter goes on to say, "to all rational agents
within relevantly similar circumstances."
Not intending to elide an important consideration, I was using the assertion
that a maxim M might be "true for all agents" as shorthand for something like
"The assertion "A should conform to M" is true for all agents".
As to whether a maxim is universalizable or not, I think this is a far trickier
issue. To say it is a matter of the *form* of a maxim is to allow what I'm
sure Kant (and anyone basically sympathetic with his position) would not want,
unless my understanding of 'form' is off here.
Formally, one can make anything universalizable by suitable definition of
terms. If I define "teacher", idiosyncratically, as what one normally means by
"teacher" except in the case that the person is myself, then I can affirm
"teachers should respect the autonomy of their students" as (formally)
universalizable without it putting any constraint on my behavior. It can be
made the principle of a universal law (which is what I understand
'universalizable to be) without contradiction so long as the designation of
who's excluded from the strictures is unchanged no matter who's applying the
maxim -- i.e. so long as I remain the only exclusion from the definition of
'teacher' even if you're considering the maxim yourself.
In *form*, the maxim remains universalizable with this idiosyncratic
definition, but in substance, of course, the entire point to universalizability
has been lost.
The purpose of this example is to illustrate that 'universalizability' is not
just a *formal* property of maxims. Instead, it is a substantive notion, with
a bunch of substantive presumptions that make it work -- such as the
presumption that the definitions of terms exclude such idiosyncracies as I've
just invented, idiosyncracies which cannot be eliminated by purely formal means.
Walter comes to what I think is the crux of the matter here:
> ----------------> Ethics is the philosophical (transcendental) study of moral
> judgment and deliberation. It is not an empirical discipline. "How human
> beings actually interact with one another" is of no necessary relevance for
> philosophical inquiry and appeals to such facts have no probative force in
> moral justification.
I completely agree with Walter that morals is not an empirical discipline in
the sense that one does not confirm the validity of a moral principle by
observing human behavior in anything like the sense in which one confirms a
principle of physics by observing how physical objects behave.
On the other hand, morals is absolutely a discipline that is *about* what human
beings actually do to/with one another. The entire force of the obligations
memorialized in moral maxims is in their applicability to real life, to what
really has been done or could be done.
Walter goes on to talk about how questions of motivation are distinct from
questions of justification, another point I entirely agree with. But again,
even with that distinction firmly in mind, justification still has to be
*applicable* to real interactions, or it's idle.
> -------> Moral assertions are prescriptive, not descriptive.
Yes, of course, but what they are prescribing is real human action or again
they're idle.
> -------> I can go on about how Alex Kovalev ought to be treated, without once
> describing
> anything about how he is or has been treated.
Yes, but how he, whoever he is, ought to be treated is about how he *really*
ought to be treated, or it's idle.
> ----------> To determine what "Stop at stop signs" means, one needs to
> understand the command and the words are important. But even once one knows
> what the command and the corresponding rule states, one does not know how and
> when to apply the rule.
What would "knowing what the command and the corresponding rule states" be if
it were not knowing how and when to apply the rule?
> -------> I need to
> look at the features of a set of circumstances external to the rule itself in
> order to be able to decide how to "apply" the rule to that context, or whether
> to apply it at all.
This may be true, but so much the worse for the independent meaningfulness of
the rule, i.e. the meaning of the rule apart from its interpretation. How can
I know what the rule is unless I can cite at least *some* instances of its
applicability? What would it mean to understand the rule otherwise?
> -------> That raises the question whether morality is necessarily concerned
> with universally valid and applicable principles. In that it is the sole form
> of
> discourse and inquiry known to humans and angels to be concerned with
> establishing the impartiality and objectivity of moral deliberation and
> judgement, I would reply in the affirmative.
To put the two pieces together -- universalizability as a formal characteristic
of a maxim and morality as being about something other than real human action
-- I think that the idea that morality can be about something other than real
human interactions underwrites the idea that moral maxims can be
universalizable by way of a tacit but unfortunately only wishful application of
the model of mathematical theories in physical sciences.
Mathematics is seen to have offered abstract principles that can be applied
successfully to *de*scribe the behavior of physical objects. In a parallel
way, morality, as I hear it described by Walter, seems to offer abstract
principles that, it is hoped, can be can be applied successfully to *pre*scribe
the behavior of humans, or more generally rational agents.
The problem with the parallel is that the mathematical models for physics are
self-contained abstractions whose meaningfulness does *not* depend on their
applicability to anything in the real world. They are, of course, constructed
for their potential applicability, but there is something to be understood
apart from their applicability to the real world.
The same, I urge, cannot be said for the principles of a moral theory. The
terms of a moral theory are idle without their sense of applicability to the
real world in a way which the terms of a mathematical theory of physics are not
idle.
One can discover things about the mathematical models of physics simply by
contemplating mathematical abstractions. One can explain e = mc**2 solely in
terms of the mathematical abstractions behind each term in the equation, or one
can explain it by reference to how physical things interact in the real world.
It is that pair of related but distinct set of meanings of the terms which
gives traction to the distinction between theoretical and applied physics.
I simply cannot see what the *abstract* definitions of "teacher", "student",
"autonomy", and "respect" would be which would make "teachers should respect
the autonomy of their students" have a meaning independently of its application
to the real world. Without such abstract definitions, I am unable to
understand what a 'theoretical' morals would be, and without a notion of
'theoretical' morals, I do not see what it can mean to call a moral principle
'universal', other than simply to be a way of saying one approves the principle.
By the way, just in case there's any question, I don't think the alternative to
"universal" moral principles is "culturally-relative" moral principles. The
alternative, in my mind, is "principles that are always potentially subject to
qualification" and/or "principles whose applicability is always potentially
questionable". Sometimes the qualifiers are of the sort that might be seen as
culturally-relative, but other times they're just qualifiers about the
messiness of real human interactions. Judgment, in my view, is what we
exercise when we decide the extent to which the potential qualifiers need to be
considered.
Finally, to bring things full circle, in my view a maxim's form could only
usefully be seen as determining whether the maxim can be the principle of a
universal law if all the definitions, grammar and logical apparatus used to
formulate the maxim had the kind of rigor which mathematical statements have.
Otherwise, per my example at the start of this, the non-universal nature of the
maxim can be hidden inside the definitions, grammar or logical apparatus.
And in order to have true impartiality and objectivity in matters of morals,
one would have to have the sort of fixed, incontrovertible definitions which a
theoretical morals would purport to offer. Without those, it would be
impossible for one ever to discern for certain the difference between a truly
impartial judge and a biased one whose decisions happened to agree, at the
moment, with one's judgment.
If, though, one does not believe in the possibility of such fixed,
incontrovertible definitions of moral terms, if one, instead, sees the
quotidian world of actual human interactions as all we have to work with in
understanding the prescriptions of morality, then one is stuck with partial,
subjective efforts to achieve a fairness all interested parties accept.
I think that's all one can really hope for and at the same time, I think it's
more than enough if we just give it a chance. To insist that there are
universal moral principles is, in my view, of a piece with insisting that there
is one true religion. If we are to counter the arbitrary and destructive
forces of fundamentalism, we have to be prepared to recognize them at work in
our own most cherished ideals and look for ways to preserve the way of life we
prefer without demanding obeisance to its principles from those who don't share
its ideals.
Regards to one and all.
Eric Dean
Washington DC
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