>Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 10:57:46 -0500 (CDT) >From: Tibor R Machan Why Objective Seems Subjective in Ethics Tibor R. Machan A perennial question about norms is just how one might establish them, show that they are true (or false). The disappointedment some feel with this difficulty has produced skepticism about whether statements of norms -- for example, "George ought to feed his child" or "Tyrannies are evil" -- can be true at all. Although most of us often make ethical, political and aesthetic claims, many doubt that such claims can be true. Instead, they regard these claims to be "subjective" or "relative" or even beyond the pale. A good example is provided by one of our most prominent philosophical essayist, Richard Rorty, who tells us, concerning political principles, that we "cannot say that [e.g.] democratic institutions reflect a moral reality and that tyrannical regimes do not reflect one, that tyrannies get something wrong that democratic societies get right." This way of thinking is widspread, even while nearly universal agreement exists on some norms. People in different cultures and at different periods of history clearly treat some of them as "objective," meaning that their truth could be established. In normal discourse these claims are treated as if they could be shown true, debated, etc. For example, it is nearly universally agreed that parents ought to rear their children so as to ready them for adulthood, or that life preserving actions are superior to life destroying ones, at least in non-extraordinary circumstances. Many others are treated as if they were true at least for specific circumstances, involving particular persons and their choices. Moreover, plenty of "good reasons" have been advanced in defense of these sorts of claims, contrary to what some assert. I want to suggest first why this apparent conflict presents itself. As an example of a reason, consider that ethical claims do not seem to serve to identify some fact independent of persons. "Harry ought to write to his mother," is pertinent when there's Harry exists and could do just that, not any other time. This suggests the subjectivity - i.e., subject-dependence - of such claims. Then, too, people often disagree on ethical or political subjects, more than on others, and these disagreements appear to be intractable. Consider that "President Clinton ought (not to) to sign the trade agreement with Japen" is widely disputed. But these differences can be explained by other than what some claim, namely, that efforts to to provide reasons for such beliefs are "not convincing, they are not rigorous, they are not logical, they are not coherent, they are semantic, they are arbitrary, and so forth." First let us take a brief look at how people use "objective" and "subjective" when it comes to norms and to ethics. For an ethical claim to be objective it would have to be established independently of the person making such a claim. For instance, Thomas Nagel suggests that "In deliberation [on what we ought to do] we are trying to arrive at conclusions that are correct in virtue of something independent of our arriving at them" By "subjective," as applied to claims as to what is right or wrong, good or bad, what someone ought or ought not to do, many people mean that the claim arises from a per- son's "unique point of view" or "set of personal preferences." I think that when we use "objective," we would be more cogent to mean that what we claim or think can be established as true or false in ways that anyone without serious brain damage and familiar with the case at hand can follow and would if he or she took the time to investigate. The way to establish the truth or falsity of the claim can involve reference to facts about the person making the claim or something apart from that person, or even some relationship between the person and other features of the world. It is crucial to note that there need be nothing universal about a judgment that is objective, in the sense that the judgment must apply throughout the class of human beings. The claim that a particular hat fits Harry, for example, is objective but is not generalizable (to all people other than Harry). So it is not true that the hat fits everyone, only that it fits Harry. Similarly, the claim that Harry ought to write to his mother can be true but without being generalizable to anyone else. Of course, in the case of the hat that fits Harry not necessarily anyone else, the means by which we show this - e.g., sizing Harry's head and then sizing the hat - would have to be generalizable, so that when we say that the other hat fits Joe, the means by which we show this to be true are none other than those we used to show the claim about Harry's hat. Yet the same approach is not granted when it comes to making claims as to what Harry ought or ought not to do, what is the right course of conduct for Harry, etc. With claims of that sort it is often suggested that they are subjective and "true for" Harry but not "true for" others. Such claims are thus not objectively but only subjectively true - true from someone's point of view, in terms of someone's preferences, not open to be established as true. This way of viewing the matter also suggests that the objectivity available in other areas - e.g., in science, in ordinary factual concerns - isn't concerning these sorts of claims. Yet it is not evident that claims about what one ought or ought not to do are not in fact much more akin to the sort of claims about a hat fitting Harry. There is at least one respect in which they are, namely, regarding their agent(or wearer's)-relativity. The fittingness of the hat is related to the hat wearer's particular head size. The hat always fits some potential hat wearer. And whether it does is either true or false. What is universal is only that if it is true, then all those who are concerned with whether things are true or false and lack normal faculties for this purpose could identify the claim as such. This is sometimes obscured by saying "That the hat fits is true only for Harry," as if the truth of the claim rather than the fittingness of the hat were something particular to Harry. And the same happens with claims about what someone ought to do - it may be that only that person ought to do something, none other, but that he ought to is then true "for anyone." Objectivity lies in the means of proving or grounding some claim, not in the range of its applicability. Such a proof, if we can obtain it, will connect the claims (or judgments) we make with the world itself that judgments aim to identify correctly. That is the point of stressing objectivity, to note the con- nection between what we judge, claim, think, etc., with what is the case, with reality. Indeed, we note this when we admonish scientists or jurors or judges at the Olympic Games to be objective - to stick to evidence and sound reasoning, to avoid letting their feelings or wishes to influence what they come to judge, claim or think. The issue of universality comes into only in that the claim that is supposedly objective could be established to the satis- faction of anyone (in the universe of those) who can understand the standard. So far so good. An additional difficulty is that when it comes to ethical matters, what is true can be so intimately tied to the individual and the unique circumstances wherein the question as to what one ought to do arises, that we cannot expect that getting the answer would involves finding something that is already in the world, only not yet evident to us. Yet, as Raimond Gaita observes, "If I am deliberating about which is the best route off the mountain and I fail to arrive at an answer, I can pass the problem over to my partner; it is only acciden- tally my problem. If I am deliberating about what, morally, to do, then I can- not pass my problem over to anyone else: it is non-accidentally and inescap- ably mine." Yet does this disturb the objectivity of the issue at hand? If I concluded that I ought to abandon my friend and seek my own route when we are both lost on a treacherous mountain, is there no objective way to tell whether this is right, whether the claim that I should so proceed is true? The objectivity is not necessarily disturbed in the slightest by the inescapable personal element of the judgment, namely, that what I ought to do is intimately linked to the I, to who and what I am, something that is ultimately irreducibly individual. Of course, it could turn out that I address the problem on a substantially subjective level - based on my unexamined fears, my prejudices, my preferences, instead of, for example, what is actually important to me, what is right for me to do, how I ought to live my life. The subjectivity would enter from my disregarded for or inattention to the important facts and from my letting less important matters guide my thinking. As in the case of a jury's refusal to pay attention to the evidence linking the defendant to a crime rather than to the defendant's looks, tastes in music and preferences for certain sports - i.e., immaterial, irrelevant matters - the decision to do something would be subjective if immaterial, irrelevant factors where to influence it. Of course, when one admits that the person's identity is of vital importance to the determination of what one ought to do, this suggests that in such cases subjective factors are inescapable. But that is because the question about one's identity is left unaddressed. Is who and what someone is entirely a matter of what one wishes, what one likes, one's tastes and likes? If one's identity is in such a flux, then the personal element in moral decisions would make such decisions subjective. Moral decisions would arise from considering such unstable elements within ourselves. But if we have identities of some stability, some firmness, so that the personal can be identified by one who is concerned about it - ourselves, a parent, friend, lover, therapist or, in circumstances that are depend on the role we have taken on in life, a colleague or consultant - the objectivity available in other realms of decision making would be attainable. And we could even be held responsible, again akin to a juror, for failing to be objective about reaching our moral decision. The reason many do not believe that a standard of decision making is available is that they see the personal element to provide us with quicksand, not stable, clear cut enough data drawn from reality itself. Many ethical matters of greatest concern to us relate intimately to facts about us that range from the utterly individual or unique to gradually more widely shared and, fi- nally, to the completely universal. The "personal," after all, includes aspects of ourselves that are wholly unique, such as our particular configuration of talents, biological composition, our family-national-ethnic-cultural-regional setting, and the decisions we have made based in large measure on the com- bination of all these, as well as facts we share with many others - e.g., in be- ing parents, Americans or French, tall or short, diabetics or allergic to pea- nuts, doctors or teachers, and, in the last analysis, members of the human species (distinguished, presumably, by our capacity for rational thought). Yet the unique facts seem to many to be more important than those we share with others. Furthermore, of the facts we share with others appear to be accidental, insignificant, unimportant or contingent. So resting ethical claims that rest on arguments that include such facts as premises seems to be arbitrary or subjective. These facts about us seem like they could easily be otherwise or could be changed at will, so whatever follows from (practical) arguments in which they play a role appears to depend on something that could, but for our decision or some accident, be different. But such facts are firm enough. First, consider facts about the individual human being I am - e.g., born in Budapest, with a height is 6' 2", with a fair complexion and with my particular history at this point of my life. Second, consider some other facts that could be firm enough, such as my profession, family status, residence, etc. If these alterable facts came about through an objective, rational judgment I made - i.e., they were based on other facts about me and my proper ranking of my options in the world I faced - they would be morally well established facts on the basis of which further decisions ought to be made. My choice to become a film maker could have come from, among other things, the fact that I am talented in some areas, that I had the opportunity to learn about film making, etc., as well as the fact that being a productive person is better for me than simply lying around. So what appears to be subjectively based could upon closer inspection turn out to be objective. Furthermore, a subjective or purely optional element can enter basically objective moral decisions. We may have an admittedly fleeting, even trivial taste for something. But if it is rational for us to indulge such tastes - say, since a human life is better lived when a person experiences some pleasures - then such an element does not deprive the conclusion as to what we ought to do of its objectivity. Now objectivity does not imply singular - it could be the case that one ought to choose any one of a number of courses of conduct, with either one being objectively right, if they do not differ from one another so far as mo- rality is concerned. Thus it could be objectively true that "I ought to perform either a Mozart, a Liszt or a Brahms piece during my concert," while entirely optional - and, perhaps, in this limited respect, subjective - which of these I perform. Many mean by "subjective" those factors that determine which of these pieces I will perform. Yet to characterize what one ought basically to do as determined subjectively would be a mistake, for it could be true that one ought, objectively, to perform at least one of them. Or, to put it differ- ently, one may objectively have the moral responsibility to honor a promise to give a piano recital but it will be a matter of one's subjective preference what music one will perform. So it would probably be best to say that although there are objective determinants of what we ought to do, there are many optional - subjective - matters that will serve to determine our actual morally justified conduct. One should, objectively, dress formally for the wedding but exactly which one of one's formal attire one will wear could be a matter of preference. But how might this objectivity of what one ought to do be ascertained? In the natural metaethical tradition I find most sensible, it would be by reference to our human nature. This nature, of course, includes the fact that we are beings such that we share some but progressively fewer characteristics with others as we identify ourselves in particular. Given that we are living beings for whom there can exist benefits and harms bearing on our success as such, we may well be able to identify courses of conduct based on this, albeit highly diverse, difference. For example, given that we are human beings, i.e., animals whose lives are uniquely guided by the thinking they do or do not do, it may be objectively true that we all ought to think well and always when we are conscious and not engaging in needed recreation or enthrallment. This may well be objectively true about human beings as such within the bounds of their capacity - e.g., they cannot be overly tired when it applies, lest "ought implies can" is violated. Given, however, one's specific identity, and having done one's needed quotient of thinking that drew on various facts about oneself, one could objectively decide that one ought to aspire to a career in philosophy, electrical engineering, the performing arts and ought to move to a cosmopolitan city and embark upon a suitable education to each that goal. This will, in one's own case - i.e., in the case of this given human being - constitute a series of judgments (potentially rendered into claims) as to what one ought to do. These judgments or claims would then be objectively supported by publicly accessible facts about oneself (although few will wish to access them outside oneself and some intimates). This thesis appears now to conflict with the widely embraced "is/ought" gap position. Yet, that one cannot derive true claims as to what one ought to do from true claims about what is the case rests on the mistaken assumption that a derivation must be a deductive argument at every step of the reasoning process. It is supplemented by Moore's naturalistic fallacy, namely, the view that a sound definition cannot be sensibly questioned. But if the former were true, we could never derive anything from anything, since concepts and definitions are not established deductively but are the products of scientific and ordinary theorizing or formation of general principles. A concept is not formed by means of some intellectual intuition of a propositions from which further propositions may be formally deduced. It is more sensible to understand concepts as formed by abstraction - by what Aristotle refers to integration and differentiation, by thinking of what one is aware of and arranging this material in a coherent, complete and practical order. We combine this concept formation process with the development of language - which is, in large measure, an economization process, since it is easier to keep in mind and recall words than lengthy strings of ideas. And when we ask about the meaning of a concept, we do indeed ask on what sorts of occasions, with what conditions surrounding us, we will make use of it. The nature of meaning is to carry out this process of conception formation objectively, and the nature of meaningful moral concepts - and, in the last analysis, a meaningful moral life - rests on such objectivity. It not only guides us to living rightly and well but also enables us to know that we do so, should it become necessary to explain ourselves either to ourselves or to, for example, significant others. On reason much of this is so mystifying, so much so that some philoso- phers seem to be abandoning the effort to render it generally, systematically intelligible, is that the central features the process is sui generis. One will not be able to account for it by means of some neat analogy. Still, I wish to propose how we embark on the formation of an idea - or decided how to organize what we are aware of and develop our conceptual economy. It involve a kind of intellectual or mental (but not final or finished or eternal) grasping of the materials which our normal sensory-perceptual ac- tivity supplies to us and which by means of our faculty of reasoning develops into an understanding of the world. And part of that understanding includes the relationship we ought to have to the world, how we ought to act. Arriving at an objective understanding is to have done this development internally consistently and guided by nothing more than what is evident to perception and certain reasonable principles (for example, that some others are trustwor- thy advisers, etc.). As an example of a familiar concept, let us take the idea of causation. It is objective in so far as it involves the notion that a being acts according to its attributes and not in defiance of them and will continue to do this unless evidence supports otherwise. More elapse of time is no such evidence, so we can infer that the sun will (be caused to) appear on the eastern horizon tomor- row as in the past, given that there is no cause for it not to. It is not the case, however, that the sun must, logically or with deductive certainty, rise tomor- row. A theory of the causal behavior of various beings can be developed and utilized to predict as well as guide our own behavior so as to change things. Engineering is possible because of this, yet when we conclude that a bridge will be built best - i.e., must reliably - in this or that way, the proposition is not deduced except so far as there is a provision accepted that takes care of the possibility of change. This, roughly, indicates the sort of objective basis for complex concepts relating to the world and our involvement with it. The same general approach may well apply to normative areas such as ethics. The variables will be greatly increased, however. For example, be- cause human beings have the capacity to cause some of their own behavior, in ethics we make claims that include "ought" and "ought not," "should" and "should not," "responsibility," "obligation," "duty," etc., and we do not make categorical but only hypothetical predictions. Yet the situation is not all that different from engineering - one might say that in ethics we conclude that life will be lived best in this or that way - i.e., that most probably if we adhere to certain guidelines, our lives will come off most successfully as human lives. Thus in an ethical argument some theory of what "good," "ethically," etc. mean will be essential, yet such a theory is built up from experience and generalization and the application of the principles of concept formation in general. If it is true, then, that "good" means "life enhancing for the agent, qua the nature of the agent," so that, say, it is good for plants to gain sunlight because sunlight enhances plant life, and if "ethically" means "chosen by the agent because it is good," then it can be cogently (but not fully deductively) argued that one ought to choose to do what enhances one's life as the kind of being one is, that is, given one's nature. Given human nature, then, one ought, first and foremost, choose to think. As to the Moorean objection that any definition of what "good" means can be earnestly questioned, let us note that such a question can be raised about definitions and theories in every branch of knowledge. When a new astrophysical entity, say "kaino-matter," is identified and defined, questions abound about it and only after a while do they subside, once the success of the definition has caught on. In ethics, politics, aesthetics, however, such questioning of definitions rarely subside since there are many motives for questioning them - including attempts at obfuscation, professional devils ad- vocacy, the need to be sure about something so personally significant, etc. It may help here to consider that we have an area of value judgment or application of norms outside of human life that is relatively uncontroversial and does afford us evidence for the objectivity of norms. I have in mind such life sciences as botany, ecology, biology, zoology and medicine. In these ar- eas we confidently refer to good and bad states, conditions, attributes, pros- pects, organs, etc., with no suggestions that these are good "to us" alone. When a botanist, ecologist or physician judges the condition of some plants or living organs, and proposes that these are doing badly or well, there is no suggestion here at all that the norms by reference to which this judgment is advanced is subjective, manufactured by human beings based on their pref- erences or tastes. A redwood tree can be faltering or a kidney can be mal- functioning, quite apart from any human preference. Even if a patient were to prefer to die, this would not change the diagnosis of the kidney. Gardeners can report on whether the population of their gardens are doing well or badly, even if the owner may wish for the garden to perish. It is not a subjective matter how a living thing is doing, rather something determinable by refer- ence to a sound theory of its life and what is needed to have it flourish and avoid its demise. The main difference regarding norms about human life is only that human beings live largely because they choose to do so and who they are, their individuality, is vital to what they are, their nature. So the norms on the basis of which it needs to be determined whether they are doing well or badly, whether they are good or evil, are much more complicated, much more dependent on details about them. Furthermore, when one establishes what they ought to do and avoid doing, this will mean something unusual in the scheme of norms in general. It will mean something bearing on how they ought to choose to act, not just on how they would be behave, as that would be the case with the well being of, say, an oak tree, a whale or a butterfly. These entities do well or badly not of their own accord, just as human beings do well or badly on some respect not of their own accord - e.g., their genetic make-up or the climate in which they live can bear on their well or ill being. But in many other respects human beings govern their own well or ill being, they are, in short, responsible for it. This provides a unique aspect to norms pertaining to human living, an aspect missing from the lives of other living beings. Of course, this element of self-directedness or self-governance is controversial, but it does not directly bear on the issue of objectivity. Whether human beings possess free will, normally, is a matter pertaining to what kind of beings they are, so that it will concern whether and what they can cause, how do they behave. It will also have to do with the precondition of self-responsibility, including the kind of political framework within which they would live most in accord with their nature. (This is where natural rights theory comes into the picture.) Yet, as far as the behaviors that will be good for them to engage in - what they ought to (choose to) do - that is as much of an objective matter as what will be best for a redwood tree, for a bumble bee or a baboon. It seems, then, that there is good reason to think that no problem of subjectivity afflicts the sphere of norms and that these norms pertain to some- times rather complex yet still objective facts. When applied to human beings, of course, there will be much evidence of divergence from these norms, but that does not alter their objectivity. It merely changes the way the norms be- come instantiated. Unlike in the case of, say, a redwood tree or a giraffe, what makes for a good state of affairs or condition in human life is often within the power of the individual person to bring into or fail to bring into being. Thus if being thoughtful is right for human beings, but whether one will or will not be thoughtful is largely up to the agent himself or herself, the norm does not only amount to the claim that "Human beings are best off being thoughtful," but also to the claim that "Human beings ought to be thoughtful." As such, they could fail to be thoughtful, fail to abide by this objectively true norm of their existence. It seems to me that this way of understanding the objectivity of norms escapes many problems and solves others not adequately solved by the subjectivist approach. Since uniform universality is not a requirement here, not all norms must apply to all persons (some can apply to just a few or even just one). Diversity, too, would make clear enough sense, so that some of what cultural relativism stresses could be true without conforming to the cultural relativist explanation of norms. I have not addressed the broader issue of epistemological objectivity here, although I have tried that elsewhere . My point was to indicate that certain features of subjectivity depend upon a misunderstanding of what ob- jectivity requires. I would like to finish with a point in epistemology - in order to facilitate getting across my position - made in the context of discussing Wittgenstein's ideas about logic: Logical necessity ... is not like rails that stretch into infinity and compel us to always to in one and only one way; but neither is it the face that we are not compelled at all. Rather, there are the rails we have already traveled, and we can extend them beyond the present point only by depending on those that already exit. In order for the rails to be navigable they must be extended in smooth and natural ways; how they are to be continued is to that extent determined by the route of those rails which are already there. ..[W]e are "responsible" for the ways in which the rails are extended, without destroying anything that could properly be called their objectivity. Endnotes: Even those who object to the claim that norms are objective make purportedly objective claims when they say that others, too, ought to reject this claim. The ought may be only a very mild moral rebuke in this instance, yet judging by the intensity and seriousness with which it is advanced, it is hardly to be taken as an expression of a mere preference. Richard Rorty, "The Seer of Prague," The New Republic, July 1, 1991, p. 37 Rorty means by "we" "non-metaphysicians," i.e., those who understand the way things are best, such as he himself. Actually, when someone like Rorty advances such notions, it is difficult to make clear just what he is doing - recommending, advising, promoting, or making a claim as to what is the best way to proceed. This is because according to Rorty none of these can be defended or have any truth value. Just how prominent it is can be gleaned from the proclamation offered by Richard Posner, Judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and professor at the University of Chicago School of Law, that he subscribes to pragmatism "in approximately the sense in which pragmatism is expounded and defended by the philosopher Richard Rorty." Richard Posner, "Pragmatism and the Rule of Law," lecture given at the American Enterprise Institute, July 7, 1991. I mean here that as we discuss what we ought to or ought not to do in personal, social, political, international and other contexts, we do adduce reasons and sometimes even reach agreements because of these reasons, despite what such thinkers as Posner tell us, namely: "I am denying the priority of reason in human [moral] judgement. I am suggesting that we can, because we do, have confident beliefs without reasoning to them from unimpeachable truths, unimpeachable or non-unimpeachable, because I haven't suggested and don't mean to suggest that our strong moral intuitions are true. They are merely undislodgeable at the time, an undislodgeable part of our grounds for action, and that is good enough for me, because I don't think we can do better." (p. 8) Of course, these intutitions are dislodged aplenty, for example, by people who do horrible things, for which Posner and Co. give no explanation. One reason many think moral judgments do not lend themselves to being established as true is that they mistakenly assume that truths in other, non-moral or non-normative disciplines can be established with timeless, unchanging, infallible certainty. Yet truth everywhere is different from this. When we know something, or when we have shown some claim to be true, we have the best possible mental or cognitive grasp of it. Although this is difficult to explain by analogy, since such a feat is sui generis, one might get an idea of this by thinking of how some object can be covered up. To cover up an object does not require having done so fully, perfectly, completely, only adequately for the purposes at hand. Covering something up absolutely is impossible, although covering it up is possible. Thus, knowing something absolutely is impossible, but knowing it is possible. (We can also fail to cover something up, just as we can fail to know something.) Ibid., p. 68. In reference to these charges, see Julius Kovesi, Moral Notions (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978). Kovesi shows why such criteria for what ought to suffice as moral support are confused and ad hoc. Indeed, Posner and anyone else can tell that if these criteria where to hold for every rational discipline, there would be none - certainly biology and medicine would not qualify. The remarks recalls Aristotle's point about the different standards of precision that apply in different fields. Thomas Nagel, "The Limits of Objectivity," The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 1980 (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 100. Raimond Gaita, "The Personal in Ethics," in Wittgenstein: Attention to Particulars (p. 127). I will not embark on some exact classification of these facts in terms such as "contingent," "necessary," etc., because such a classifications are themselves replete with philosophical difficulties. What is a contingent fact contingent upon - God's will, our awareness of it, the actual world? I will, instead, depend on common sense distinctions that we invoke normally, in our daily lives. For an illuminating discussion of this point, see Doug J. Den Uyl, "Teleology and Agent-Centeredness," The Monist, Vol. 75 (January 1992), pp. 14-33. See, also, Henry B. Veatch, "Ethical Egoism, New Style: Is Its Proper Trade Mark Libertarian or Aristotelian?" in Henry B. Veatch, Swimming Against the Current in Contemporary Philosophy (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1990), pp. 27-28. Tibor R. Machan, "Some Reflections on Richard Rorty's Philosophy," Metaphilosophy, Vol. 24 (January/April 1993), pp. 123-135. Barry Stroud, "Wittgenstein and Logical Necessity," in G. Pitcher, ed., Wittgenstein (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969), p. 496.