Against "Abolishing Morality"

I recently read an intriguing and disturbing article "Abolishing Morality", arguing why, assuming error theory is true, why abolishing all moral thinking and discourse will be better for society, solving more problems than morality has managed to solve. I argue two main points concerning the article: first, that the author's main arguments as to the usefulness of abolishing morality are not convincing, and second that the underlying theory he is arguing for - error theory, the theory that there are no moral facts, that any moral claim is false, is fundamentally mistaken. Instead, I argue that there are indeed moral facts.

First, I want to be as fair as possible to the error theorist position. Why would anybody argue that there are no moral facts? I see two main reasons. First is the argument from naturalism. Naturalism is basically the idea that any facts should be provable by science, or else, not contradict science. Seems fair enough. According to this argument, one cannot find moral facts by looking at the world in an empirical manner - by means of observation and sense data. One can travel the world, looking around, but one will not find a moral fact. Instead, moral facts appear to be beyond the purview of scientific enquiry. GE Moore was quite right in saying that one can identify any natural property of a thing in the world one likes. But goodness is never in and of itself a part of that thing. It is always an open question as to whether that property is good. Given that moral claims of good and evil cannot be reconciled with naturalism, given they are not in and of themselves part of the empirical world, and indeed appear to be impossible to find by empirical methods, it seems that there are no moral facts. This seems like a reasonable argument, if the naturalist position is true. But I argue that naturalism is in no ways a true account of reality. It captures part of reality to be sure. But not all of it.

The above argument from naturalism assumes that all of reality is understandable and discoverable by scientific means, by empirical methods. I argue that is not the case. Before we do any science, we have to have particular beliefs on the nature of reality - in particular that it is knowable, and that the laws of logic that we use to apprehend reality actually are reliable. These things that presuppose science cannot be discovered by scientific means. Instead, they transcend empirical reality. Indeed, scientific enquiry depends on things that cannot in principle be apprehended by scientific means. One can look at a brain scan all day long, but one cannot access the inner dimensions of a thought. One can know every empirical fact about a book - its mass, its dimensions, the chemical composition of the ink. But none of these scientific facts give any information about the meaning of the words within. My point is, is that naturalism does not capture the fullness of reality. As a result, it is a mistake to look at the world solely in naturalistic terms. Indeed, this naturalism is born of the practice of reductionism in science - narrowing the scope of enquiry to that which can be apprehended by the senses and measured. The point is that reductionism which gives birth to naturalism is a narrowing of the scope. The problem with naturalism is that it makes the unwarranted assumption that this narrowed scope view of reality is all of reality. If naturalism is mistaken, then it follows that the argument from naturalism is also mistaken. Scientific claims and moral claims are of different natures, and describe different aspects of reality.

A second argument for error theory is the argument from moral controversy.It seems reasonable to suggest that if something is a fact, it should be indisputable. If there is disagreement about scientific facts, there is a clear way to check - go and do the experiment and find out. Even so, in most disciplines, the facts are normally not up for debate. There tends to be some level of stability as to what the actual facts are. Ethics, it seems, is a different thing entirely. Instead of there being consensus, there tends to be major disputes - sometimes people fighting over ethical questions. And throughout history, there has been no end in sight to these disputes. We keep doing the same things, making the same excuses, we as a species certainly have not  become moral. Indeed, there are even different ethical codes and practices in different parts of the world. One key example would be cannibalism. In places like Fiji in the past, this was seen as morally acceptable. Contrast that with the European world, and it is seen as taboo. Moral relativism being descriptively true, appears to suggest that there is no agreement over the moral facts. Indeed, this data of moral disagreement, relativism and failure to develop any sort of uniformity seems to suggest that there are no moral facts. While in science, there has been consensus on the facts, and through this consensus, progress, in ethics we are still a mess. And so, it seems logical to suggest that there are no moral facts, that error theory is true.

Although there is much truth in the above argument, I hold that it does not prove that there are no moral facts. More, that there is disagreement about these facts, and that we humans are often very bad at being moral. I observe that there are at least some moral values that are common to every culture around the world. For example, not murdering, looking after ones children, being brave, not taking what does not belong to you. Where there are exceptions to the basics, these are due to excuses, rationalisation. In the case of murder, those cultures that permitted the killing of innocent people made excuses as to why the victims were not human, or else, were permissible to kill. The basic moral fact of the value of human life remains. The reason why we even today have not come to any sort of moral consistency is that ethics is not a black and white game of logic. We are always torn between the true good for ourselves and others, and temporarily attractive goods that in the end cause harm. We are tempted. Evil is attractive. If it was not, we would not do evil. Indeed, the argument above, in pointing out moral inconsistency, in doing so supposes that there is moral reality. And the reality is, it is not a perfect world. If there were no moral facts, our pointing out to a child that hitting his brother is wrong would make no sense to him. The reason why a child is able to see the wrongness of things when it is pointed out to him is that there is a moral dimension to reality. We humans are able to see it with our consciences. I argue that there are ways of rationally figuring our the moral facts - the system of natural law is the best way, I think, of achieving the goal of ethics - human flourishing. But that is for another essay.

Having established that it is more likely that there are moral facts, rather than not, I want to address the case that abolishing morality is ultimately better for us. First argument the article presents is that, supposedly, societies that function on morality are intrinsically authoritarian, elitist, marked by economic inequality, social inequality and war. In other words, they are inextricably bound up with moral societies. Since these things are reasonably judged to be bad things, it seems to follow that the morality that underpins such societies should be abolished. There are other ways of solving our problems. This is the basic argument. And I can see why the author would make such a case. The historical example I imagine he has in mind is Christian Europe. And it is fair to say that it was marked by a level of authoritarianism and elitism. In particular, the hierarchical society, and the imposition of morality by the Church. And indeed there were, historically, large gaps between rich and poor. On one hand, there were peasants, living a hand to mouth existence, and on the other hand, the aristocracy, kings etc. , very rich. And the history of war in European history is clear. There are reasons behind such an argument. But I think that is no reason why error theory should be adopted, and that we should give up morality for the good of society.

I notice that one could argue for the above case on historical grounds. But go a bit further, and the history defeats the claim that moral societies have such qualities intrinsic to them. First, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, European societies challenged such things as authoritarianism and elitism. Kant with his philosophy that marked the enlightenment, argued for people having moral autonomy, to think for oneself, rather than rely on the authority of the church. Concerning elitism, it is noteworthy that during the French revolution, the nobility lost their privileges, Louis XVI executed. As for economic inequality, we have political parties today working on left wing principles that try to even the odds for those poor and marginalized. And war? There are many examples of European society challenging war. The moratorium movement that arose out of the Vietnam war is a case in point. The point I want to make is this: in none of these historical cases was society amoral! This proves that such things that the author of "abolishing morality" claims are intrinsically part of moral societies are not intrinsic to them at all. As a result, morality itself is not what causes these problems. And so, abolishing morality would hardly solve these problems.

A second argument that the author of "Abolishing Morality" makes as to why hard error theory would be good for society is the claim that looking at issues as moral issues just simply causes unnecessary confusion, kindling passions, exciting the parties involved in issues at stake, preventing clear thought and compromise. Of course, this argument assumes that error theory is correct, and that there is ultimately no moral facts of the matte - and so, we should evaluate our problems apart from morality. We should look at problems as partial conflicts of interest, and evaluate moral rights in terms of legal rights, contracts etc. Although it is descriptively true that moral issues can create conflict, incite strong and fiery emotional responses, and can possibly prevent compromise, I argue again that is no reason why morality should be abolished.

Arguing in a similar vein to my last counter argument, I observe that lack of rationality and hot tempers is not as such intrinsic to discussing issues from a moral standpoint. It is perfectly possible to let the other person speak, and listen to their position. One does not have to become emotional and possibly violent when discussing issues from a moral standpoint. Indeed, an important moral principle is to love ones neighbour, which means treating them with the respect worthy of a human being. And of course, that means listening. A key problem with the above argument is that it assumes that moral principles always have an equal and opposite counter principle, and that there is no rational way to adjudicate between a moral conflict because of this. I think not. There are things that are truly good for human beings. But they exist on a hierarchy, based on how they support the flourishing of human beings. Life is the most fundamental - for without life, one cannot flourish in any way, let alone enjoy the other goods that make human life worth living. Developing a theory of hierarchy of goods, originally created by Aristotle is beyond the scope of this essay. But the point is that it can serve as a way of adjudicating between moral rights.

In conclusion, I have argued that the article "Abolishing Morality" is mistaken for the following reasons: firstly because the error theory itself appears to be mistaken. The argument from naturalism falls because naturalism as a position is untenable. It does not capture the whole of reality. The argument from moral disagreements does not hold, partly because there are still moral basics common to all cultures, and partly because we are capable of teaching people ethics. If there were no moral facts, pointing them out to young children would be nonsensical. But, instead, they are capable of seeing moral right or wrong, when it is pointed out to them. The arguments why morality should be abolished do not stand as well. The claims that moral societies are intrinsically authoritarian, elitist, economically unequal and marked by war is false historically. There are multiple examples of societies challenging such things - while remaining societies that did not do away with ethics. The other argument, the argument from emotion and confusion also is not convincing in showing why we would be better off without morality. This is because, firstly, one does not have to become an irrational bigot to discuss ethics - indeed a critical principle in many moral codes is respect for other people. And secondly, there are ways of adjudicating between parties who have moral disputes - by looking at moral rights not as equal, but part of an integrated hierarchy. Indeed, my position is that ethics can be made rational sense of, and that this hierarchy can be developed. Natural law ethics is the way forward. In future writings, I hope to show how this system can help us make sense of ethics. Of course, the question as to whether we will become good and virtuous by understanding ethics is an open one. I suspect that will not be the case. Living a moral life is hard. And we are all tempted. Knowing the truth is not even half the battle.