The Conceptual Argument Against Moral Relativism

Suppose that astronomers are wondering whether or not there is some planet out beyond the orbit of Neptune. It goes without saying that, before they begin looking for this planet or trying to determine whether or not such a planet could exist, they would need to have some idea of what a planet is or, better yet, what a planet isn’t. With this knowledge in hand they are able to determine whether or not the things they find out beyond the orbit of Neptune, if they find anything at all, are planets or not. So, for instance, though we might find a rubber ducky out beyond the orbit of Neptune we can still maintain that there are no planets there because rubber duckies are not planets.There is a similar conceptual problem in metaethics. That is, in order for coherently answer questions like “are there such things as moral rights and wrongs,” we must first have some idea of what morality is or what it isn’t.In order to frame the objection that I’m about to present regarding moral relativism, let’s consider an analogous (and trivially correct) objection to the purported discovery of a new planet. So imagine that the astronomers from earlier are at their observatory pouring over data from a long night of observing the night sky. Excitedly, one of these astronomers jumps up and shouts “I’ve found a new planet!” When her fellows rush over to see this new planet she produces a bit of scrap paper with a circle drawn on it, a few pencilled in craters, and a label that reads “Planet X.”It goes without saying that she hasn’t really discovered a new planet, but if she were serious in her claim how might her colleagues point out her error? Well it seems pretty obvious. They’d object that drawings on a piece of paper are not planets and that, no matter how many drawings one makes, one will not have drawn a new planet.Conceptual arguments against moral relativism deploy a similar line of thought. When relativists point to preferences and claim to have pinned down what right and wrong are, we can reply that they haven’t done any such thing since our concept of morality is of something other than preferences. In order to see how this goes let’s produce a rough characterization of moral relativism in terms of its conceptual and ontological claims:(Conceptual) If there were any moral facts or true moral claims, they’d be true in virtue of the speaker’s preferences.(Ontological) And of course preferences about things like murder, abortion, and so on do exist, so there are some moral facts.So, for example, the moral relativist might say that when I sincerely speak the phrase “murder is wrong,” that claim is true if and only if I disapprove of murder. What’s more I do disapprove of murder, so the claim is true!The argumentative strategy deployed here will be directed at the conceptual thesis. In order to see how it goes let’s consider an auxiliary claim to moral relativism:(R) Moral disagreements are disagreements about preferences.Note that R follows from the conceptual claim of moral relativism. That is, if our concept of morality is one that has to do with preferences, then disagreements about morality just are disagreements in our preferences. Since R follows from the conceptual claim we can show that claim to be false by showing R to be false. Now we can summarize what I’ve termed the conceptual argument against moral relativism:(1) If moral relativism is true, then moral disagreements are disagreements about preferences.(2) Moral disagreements are not disagreements about preferences.(3) So moral relativism is false.Premise 3 is entailed from 1 and 2 via modus tollens, premise 1 just follows from the definition of relativism, as I laid out above, so the only premise that needs defending is 2: that moral disagreements are not disagreements about preferences. I will defend it now.Let’s start by characterizing two types of disagreement:(Disagreement About Preferences) If Jones and Amy disagree about a preference, neither of them is mistaken. E.g. if Jones prefers strawberry ice cream and Amy prefers chocolate ice cream, neither is incorrect in their preference. Their behavior will usually reflect this as neither will sincerely try to change the position of the other.(Disagreement About Facts) If Jones and Amy disagree about a fact, then at least one of them is mistaken. E.g. if Jones thinks that Mars is the 5th planet from the sun and Amy thinks that it is the 4th, then at least one of them is incorrect in their belief. Their behavior will usually reflect this as they might deliberate over which one is right. Also note that disagreement about a fact doesn’t mean that there is some actual fact of the matter over which to deliberate. So Jones and Amy might disagree over the color of Planet Y and, even though there is no such thing as Planet Y to have a color, their disagreement still bears the form of factual disagreement.In order to see that moral disagreement more closely resembles disagreement about facts than it does disagreement about preferences consider our behavior surrounding moral disagreements. Note that in the case of a moral disagreement we:Deliberate to change the views of others.Do research to inform our own views.Do not laugh it off as “you do things your way and I’ll do things my way.”Do not agree that murder is right for some, but just not our cup of tea.Based on this is seems clear that moral disagreements are more like disagreements about facts and thus our concept of morality is more like the concept of something factual. Since the relativist holds that the concept of morality has to do with preferences, we can conclude that the relativist commits a conceptual error akin to the astronomer who has drawn Planet X. That is, when the relativist points to an agent’s approval or disapproval of some action and says “I’ve found morality,” they are pointing to something that doesn’t match the concept of morality at all.Some who read this might mistakenly assume that this is an argument for moral realism, or the view that there are some objective facts about what’s right and wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. Conceptual arguments against moral relativism are available to both moral realists and moral error theorist. The only thing that such arguments establish (if successful) is that our concept of morality is of something objective and in that sense moral relativism is mistaken. via /r/philosophy http://ift.tt/1JmVmoH