Annoying questions about good and bad
Is there such a thing as moral knowledge? And how do we find out? This article is about doubting your own existence, man-eaters, emotional judgements, and the difference between theft and vegetables.
Are we actually capable of taking irrefutable ethical positions? Is moral knowledge possible? Such questions are the subject of metaethics.
Did you use to do that with your parents in the past? You were a child, and you kept following up their answers with one word: why? My mum and dad enjoyed explaining things, but after four or five whys, there was only one possible answer. Well, it just is!
Take the example of slavery. Almost everyone thinks slavery is wrong these days. Why? Because one shouldn't treat people merely as a means. Why not? Because human dignity demands it, or because all people are equal, or something like that. Why? Yes, there you are. Religion can still get away with the answer: because that is what God has determined. I'm persistent, so I keep asking: why? In the end there is only one possible answer: it just is!
We will start with scepticism and relativism, both of which assume that moral knowledge cannot actually be objectively determined. Moral realists think the opposite, so we should certainly address that point of view as well. There are many more currents, but for the sake of clarity, we will only discuss them in passing. Philosophers will probably never agree on whether moral knowledge is possible. If you expect an unequivocal answer from me after reading this article, I must prepare you for disappointment.
God as source of moral knowledge
In search of the source of moral knowledge, many people eventually turn to divine beings. God is the source of good and shows us the way. For those who believe in this, it should be a reassuring thought: there is a supreme being. I can leave everything there that my mind cannot reach. I only need to trust in God, for She will show me the way.
The problem, of course, is that the existence of God cannot be proven, despite centuries of attempts to do so. And if you assume the existence of a supreme being at all, you will also have to assume that that god only wants good things, cares about people at all, and took the trouble to instruct us morally. Even if you assume that God's instructions are morally perfect, that is a very shaky foundation. So shaky that you cannot really speak of moral knowledge with regard to divine instructions.
One might also say that God created man and human morality. Her moral instructions are then ingrained in us. But you won't get much out of that either. For if we declare all human moral judgements to be divine, how can we distinguish between good and bad judgements?
Scepticism and relativism
We have already seen that moral scepticism had a considerable following in Greek civilisation, led by Protagoras, Pyrrho of Elis, and Sextus Empiricus. For centuries, this approach has been swept under the carpet: the approach of Plato and Aristoteles was more in keeping with the church. Augustinus, in his work Contra Academicos (386) rejected scepticism. Those who choose to suspend judgement will, according to Augustinus:
never acquire true knowledge,
therefore be unable to act rationally,
inevitably make mistakes in their behaviour, and so
have to live with imperfection,
and therefore: never find happiness.
The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was one of the first to fall back on scepticism.
Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment.
— Michel de Montaigne, Essai par divers moyens on arrive à pareille fin (1580)
At the ataraxia of Pyrrho of Elis, the carefree attitude to life because we will not know the truth anyway, he did not wish or could not accept. Like Sextus Empiricus, Montaigne acknowledged that in everyday life he allowed himself to be guided by nature, feelings, laws and customs, and by people of experience, even though he was convinced that in essence he would often have to suspend judgement. But he himself was not consistent in that. He recognised that some judgements are more likely than others, or more justifiable. Judgement is therefore allowed, although you must realise that there is a good chance that you are wrong.
The doubts of René Descartes
However, modern scepticism came about mainly through the work of the mathematician and philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650). Descartes led an adventurous life. After training with the Jesuits in a college on the Loire and further studies in Poitiers and Paris, he reported to general Maurits van Nassau in Breda. Maurits devoted a great deal of time to the innovation of warfare, taking advice from famous mathematicians and other scholars. Grist to Descartes' mill, hungry for knowledge and for a scientific network. In the following years he would travel through Europe and advise various monarchs on military strategy in military service. In the meantime he met the most famous scholars of his time and corresponded with various royal houses. In 1629 he moved to the Netherlands, to live there for twenty years, travelling from city to city, writing and corresponding. There are indications that he was a kind of informer of the Jesuits all his life, who were interested in scientific discoveries in the Protestant, in other words hostile, Netherlands. Descartes' deconstructivism became leading. To find a solid foundation for his philosophy, he decided to start by doubting everything that could be doubted, including his own senses.
I have not been able to find where he wrote his famous words Je pense, donc je suis, but it may have been in 1636 in Leeuwarden, in the Camminghaburg, a castle that no longer exists. Wherever he wrote it, he wondered: if I now doubt everything that can be doubted, what can I assume? Is nothing fixed at all? Could it be that I only dreamed that I was sitting there by the hearth thinking, in my dressing gown, with a sheet of paper in front of me? Yes, it could. Could it be that an evil spirit was whispering to me all the experiences and beliefs I believed to be true, including my own existence? That too could not be ruled out. What was left that I could be sure of? Only one thing occurred to Descartes:
I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am (COGITO ERGO SUM), was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search.
— René Descartes, Discours de la Méthode (1637)
Subsequently, Descartes began to build an entire epistemological system based on that certainty, using natural laws and scholastic theorems, which is otherwise largely considered obsolete, but the Cartesian doubt and its cogito ergo sum remain relevant. Knowledge is only possible if it is clear and unquestionable, resting on a firm and unquestionable foundation. And with regard to moral knowledge, that may be a bit too ambitious. But although moral knowledge may be a mission impossible, we cannot get away with putting all moral systems on hold, as we shall see below.
Cultural relativism
The world grew larger in the Renaissance as travel became easier. In 1492 Columbus made landfall in Cuba and Hispaniola, followed within a few years by explorations of the entire American East Coast. In 1497, Vasco de Gama sailed around Africa to India. China followed in 1516, and Japan in 1543. The accounts of the African, Asian and American civilisations must have sent shockwaves through Europe: savage, exotic tribes everywhere! The most sensational stories were said to have been found, monsters and dragons, cannibals, cities made of gold, the fountain of eternal youth, and the ten lost tribes of Israel.
Montaigne wrote in 1580 how he listened to the stories of a man who had lived in Brazil for many years. He could hardly comprehend the world discoveries of his time, he wrote. Scornfully, he recalled that the Greeks already regarded all foreign peoples as barbarians.
I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country. As, indeed, we have no other level of truth and reason than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the place wherein we live: there is always the perfect religion, there the perfect government, there the most exact and accomplished usage of all things. They are savages at the same rate that we say fruits are wild, which nature produces of herself and by her own ordinary progress; whereas, in truth, we ought rather to call those wild whose natures we have changed by our artifice and diverted from the common order.
— Michel de Montaigne, Essai des cannibales (1580)
Montaigne pointed to the intelligence and versatility of Brazil's tribes. He told how they first treat and spoil their prisoners, and then kill them in one movement, fry them and eat them. Not necessarily to feed, but to express great revenge. He described how these cannibals lost out to the Portuguese, who were in no way inferior to these 'savages' in cruelty.
I am not sorry that we should here take notice of the barbarous horror of so cruel an action, but that, seeing so clearly into their faults, we should be so blind to our own.
— Michel de Montaigne, Essai des cannibales (1580)
Montaigne's remarks on the unspoilt savage tribes were the prelude to a special category in literature, particularly of the 18th century: the noble savage. Denis Diderot (1713–1784) wrote in his Supplément au voyage de Bougainville (1772) about the people of Tahiti, describing them as mild, innocent, and happy, while calling the "civilised" white people corrupt, vile, and depraved. The Tahitian civilization with its loose sexual morals and its egalitarian society, although very different from ours, was not inferior. He rejected French efforts to bring "civilization" to Tahiti.
Observations like these, helped by the insights of the first social anthropologists, including Franz Boas, led to cultural relativism:
The ethnological data show that not only our knowledge but also our emotions are the result of the shape of our social existence and of the history of the people to which we belong.
— Franz Boas, Race, language, and culture (1940)
Cultural relativism claims that all cultural perspectives and values depend on their cultural, historical and social background, and are of equal value, because there are no universal criteria for determining the value of different cultures. That we are therefore bound to accept or tolerate other views and cultures as equals is a moral implication.
Where cultural relativism is concerned with different cultures, we can make an analogous claim to historical differences and to differences between individuals. Then we end up with moral relativism. Relativism is not undisputed in philosophical circles. For example, not all civilisations are equally successful. One civilisation is small, the other large. Some last only a very short time, or can only survive in a limited, isolated area. One civilisation brings prosperity and the other famine and poverty. One society is egalitarian, in another there is a small elite that has exclusive access to all knowledge, connections, raw materials or products. One society is violent, the other is peaceful. In one society the population is much healthier or happier than in another. And so forth.
Now of course you can say that permanence, egalitarianism, peacefulness, health, life expectancy and happiness are also just relative terms, but then you are in a minority. Objectivists hold that such cognitive, aesthetic, or ethical criteria are independent of era and civilisation, anti-objectivists dispute that; qualities such as “true” and “good” are also subjective. One can also say that sustainability, peacefulness, health and life expectancy also depend on external factors, such as climate, raw materials, available technology, neighbouring civilisations and connections, and then one has a point.
(Cultural) relativism can have radical consequences for thinking about toleration. If all cultures are equal, should we also tolerate all culturally inspired behaviour, values and norms? Let’s ask the anarchist philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994).
A free society is one in which all traditions have equal rights.
— Paul Feyerabend, Erkenntnis für freie Menschen (1976)
Consistent application would have far-reaching consequences. It would mean that a society should in fact tolerate all behaviour as long as it is dictated by a cultural tradition or even by an individual value system. Since that is practically impossible to verify, it comes down to unlimited toleration: anything goes. The criminal code can be shredded.
Few relativists would go that far. Even Feyerabend, in his Erkenntnis für freie Menschen (1976), did not advocate universally applied, unlimited toleration based on relativism. Based on his relativistic insights, he only argued for locally applied understanding of diversity in value systems. He saw his relativism primarily as an incentive to deal with deviant behaviour in a more flexible, less dogmatic way, leading to more open-minded, tolerant societies.
Moral realism
Most people nevertheless feel that some things are inherently good or bad. That view, moral realism, is still a dominant movement among ethicists today. Moral realists have no doubt that some things are just good or bad. Or, to phrase it more carefully, in philosophical jargon, moral realism is the position that ethical propositions express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is, features that are independent of subjective opinions), some of which may be true insofar as they accurately represent those characteristics. Moral realism is a view that many people will consider common sense.
Even if certain moral judgements go against mainstream beliefs, they may still be true. And we don't need a god for that. For example, moral facts have their origin in principles where empirical science falls short, because we cannot observe or measure these metaphysical principles. Or moral facts do flow from natural or social scientific knowledge. Once the bundle of genes that determines our genetic morality has been found, we should consider that thesis proven, provided that we have a picture how those interact with universal human morality.
Mooral intuition
But now, in 1903, there was an astute professor from Cambridge. His name was G.E. Moore and he wrote Principia Ethica. Ethics is about good and bad. But we are not at all capable of defining good and bad, he argued. And he was able to substantiate that well. There are closed questions and open questions. A closed question includes definitions or measurable things. Is a male bovine a bull? Is a chessboard round-shaped? What is the speed of light? Open questions are about judgements. Who was the greatest footballer of all time? When may we abort a foetus? What is good and what is bad is also an open question. That's fine, Moore argued, but if we want to give a definition, we'll eventually have to fall back on a closed question. For example, let us assume that good equals happiness. Now take the proposition: Paul is happy with three beers a day, but is three beers a day good? That's an open question. Because the answer is actually not objectively determinable. Even if we know what "good" and "happy" mean, we cannot answer the question unequivocally. According to Moore, the concepts of good and bad cannot be reduced.
If I am asked ‘What is good?’ my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter. Or if I am asked ‘How is good to be defined?’ my answer is that it cannot be defined, and that is all I have to say about it.
— G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica (1903)
What Moore wrote had quite an impact. More than a century later, we still see the ripples. But that certainly doesn't mean that he had the last word.
Objections to Moore's non-naturalism
From a morally realistic perspective, Moore's objections can be answered. To begin with, it is quite possible to use concepts that are not good to reduce. Think, for example, of concepts such as love or community, but also of scientific concepts such as numbers or time. We may not know exactly what they mean, but they are still perfectly manageable. And it may be that good and bad cannot be reduced, that does not mean that we cannot distinguish.
What’s for dinner tonight? Suppose there are still beets and cabbage in the fridge. You prefer beets, but your partner prefers cabbage. You flip a coin and you lose. You had a preference, but oh well.
Then you go shopping with a friend. You see a beautiful coat, but very expensive. She proposes to steal it. You are shocked. She suggests flipping a coin. If she wins, she steals the coat, if you win, she won’t. You probably won't accept this proposal. Morality is real and does not depend on what some people think.
Another example. You find an old painting of some withered sunflowers in your grandmother's attic. The painting is signed: Vincent.
The auction house wants to be absolutely sure of its case and calls in the twelve largest experts in the world, who have to give an opinion independently of each other. The brushwork is checked, the composition of the paint, the ageing process, the origin, the style, the dating, whatever. Eleven of the twelve assess the canvas as authentic, but on different grounds. The twelfth expert dare not give certainty. One expert is still a little unsure about the date, the other thinks it's strange that it contains a colour that the painter has never used before, another sees something peculiar in the varnish layer. Will the auction house offer the canvas as a Van Gogh? I bet you that they will. We call this divergence. You don't have to agree on everything exactly if you want to define a concept, some divergence doesn't mean you can't come to a judgement anyway.
Morality as an emotion
Let's return to the example of the vegetables and the jacket. You had no moral judgement about the choice between cabbage and beets, but you did have a judgement about whether or not to steal a coat. That moral judgement you had: what is the nature of that judgement? According to A.J. Ayer (1910-1989) you should not take meta-ethical positions that cannot be tested empirically. He agreed with Moore that the concepts of good and bad are irreducible, and therefore not testable. The alternative is that they are concepts that can be traced back to non-natural norms: norms that cannot be captured in measurable or observable reality. But even in that case, good and bad cannot be tested empirically. The only thing that can be determined empirically is that stealing a coat doesn't feel right to you. Your moral judgement is nothing more than an emotion. And when you say that stealing is wrong, you are not describing your emotion, but you still have one. You may attach a whole line of reasoning to that, but it is based on quicksand. The current that adheres to this approach is called emotivism.
There is probably not a person on earth who has exactly the same moral views as you. Your moral views are probably miles away from Genghis Khan's. If you are a member of a religious denomination or a political party, you can assume that you agree with your fellows on many things, but disagree on some. Even between you and your parents, siblings, or your children, there are likely to be moral differences. Moral views evolve a bit per generation, there are different civilisations and cultures, there are differences in personality, your intelligence, your position in society has an influence, experiences in your life, upbringing, your school, which friends you associate with, which news medium you follow, and so on.
Is there at least better and worse?
Assuming that we are dealing with rational, considered views, can we say that everyone is right from their own perspective? That one moral framework is not better than another? In that case, some things need to be sorted out.
In the first place, one might assume that sane individuals always foresee the consequences of their actions, but of course that is not the case. Think, for example, of highly educated members of a cult who are under the spell of their charismatic, but evil leader. But also in more mundane situations, people often need a 'push', a little feedback from a good friend, or an experience outside the 'comfort zone' to see things in a different perspective. It is also quite possible that you unconsciously suffer from a mild personality disorder that influences your moral judgements. Without having to take the pills right away, you can, for example, have an above-average aversion to uncertain events, or fear everything that is not familiar.
I try to godwin as little as possible, but I can't think of a better example here. For the sake of argument, let us assume that Hitler was a rational man who made well-considered decisions and did not suffer from personality disorders. You are a good friend of his, you can call him Adolf, and he tells you one evening that he has decided on the Final Solution. You obviously don't think that's a good idea, and you try to change his mind. But whatever you try, he has a consistent rebuttal to every objection. You even try to play on his mind by calling in his mother's Jewish doctor, whom he respects so much, but also to no avail.
Can you then still say that Hitler's moral considerations are no worse than yours? Few relativists will go that far. No matter how well the differences between moral frameworks can be explained, they are not necessarily equivalent.
The quality of moral systems
But how do you determine that? By what criteria can you weigh the quality of different moral systems? Let me try to give a sample of criteria that I would apply.
It goes without saying that a moral system must be consistent, and must not contain logical errors.
Morality had better not be based on a metaphysical construct, though I admit this is a matter of personal preference. Metaphysics is too wobbly for me.
Furthermore, it seems to me that our genetic morality should not interfere and do justice to our deepest psychological drives.
And our evolutionary position also seems important to me: morality must be conducive to mutual cooperation and to the survival of humans as a species.
The genes hold culture on a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance with their effects on the human gene pool.
— E.O. Wilson, On human nature (1978)
Those were the words of the biologist E.O. Wilson (1929-2021). In my view, the same applies to cultural versus genetic morality.
Cards on the table
We can conclude that moral knowledge may not, strictly speaking, exist, but that there are indeed differences between moral systems and that we cannot actually accept that all moral systems are equivalent. And that even right-thinking people can have downright wrong moral views.
Ever since citizens started participating in the governance of their city-states in the Axial period, thorough consideration has been given to the moral systems that should underlie the community. Three moral traditions have emerged over the centuries. We will discuss them in the next newsletters. The guiding question is: how does good come about? Since we are talking about human behaviour, there are three 'knobs' you can turn: the person doing something, what he does, and the consequences of what he does. Good people doing good things, leading to good outcomes, is how good happens. That's how you win a football match: with skilled players, who follow the rules of the game, and who ultimately score the most goals.
And what is the good? I don't get much further than Aristotle's eudaimonia and Mill's pleasure and absence of pain. We will discuss this in more detail later. And all this as long as the limits of our genetic morality allow it, and as long as it is conducive to mutual cooperation and the survival of humans as a species. There are many things that can be said about this, and we will do that too. But my cards are on the table now. Let the game begin.
The next episodes in this series
In the coming episodes we will consider virtue ethics, deontology and utilitarianism, respectively personified by Aristoteles, Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill.
Particularism, especially virtue ethics, emphasises man. Improve men, and their behaviour will improve by itself. People are inconsistent and never completely rational. Rigid application of rules of conduct (if they can be applied consistently and do not contradict each other) leads to frustration. And only the complexity of virtuous human judgement can deal with the ambiguity between behaviour and outcomes.
The deontologists do not focus so much on people, but on their behaviour. Behaviour is governed by certain laws that everyone should abide by. For example, we must respect certain rights of others. Or there is some variant of the reciprocity-based golden rule (if you don't want someone to do something to you, then don't do it to others either). Certain behaviours are intrinsically wrong, no matter how good the intentions and the outcomes might be.
The consequentialists, such as the utilitarians, emphasise the outcomes. It is not so much about who does something, or what they do, but the consequence of their behaviour. As long as the outcome is favourable, don't worry about the rest. After all, that was ultimately the question: how to bring about the good?
For further reading
Augustinus Hipponensis, Contra Academicos (386)
Michel de Montaigne, Essai par divers moyens on arrive à pareille fin (1580), also in English
Michel de Montaigne, Essai des cannibales (1580), also in English
René Descartes, Discours de la méthode (1637), also in English
G.E. Moore, Principia ethica (1903)
A.J. Ayer, Language, truth and logic (1936)
Paul Feyerabend, Erkenntnis für freie Menschen (1976)
E.O. Wilson, On human nature (1978)
Andrew Fisher, Metaethics — an introduction (2011)
Geoff Sayre-McCord, Metaethics, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2023)
This was the fourth episode in the series on morality and toleration. The episodes so far are:
The morality that everyone is born with
About the moral modules that all people have in common. About kin selection, cooperation, empathy and much more.Playing games with morality
Our ingrained moral modules interact. With simple games you can simulate how people in societies interact with each other. About dealing with power, division, revenge and trust.The morality of our inner hunter-gatherer, farmer and citizen
Our morality is layered: every phase of human history has left its mark. Culturally, there are still layers of hunter-gatherer, farmer, and citizen in our ethics.Annoying questions about good and bad
Is there such a thing as moral knowledge? And how do we find out? About self-doubt, man-eaters, emotional judgements, and the difference between theft and vegetables.Good people are happier. But how to become a good and happy person?
Aristotle's virtue ethics along the empirical ruler. Do we even need an ethical system if everyone is virtuous and happy? And positive psychology: how to become a happier and better person?