In my last post, I discussed Michael Huemer’s argument that a divine command theory cannot vindicate the objectivity of moral requirements. As I interpret him, the argument is:
[1] Our commitment to morality presupposes that moral requirements are objective.
[2] Moral requirements are objective just in case there obtain facts about what is right and wrong that do not constitutionally depend upon the attitude of observers towards the objects of evaluation.
[3] If divine command metaethics is true, facts about right and wrong constitutively depend upon the attitudes of an observer towards the objects of evaluation.
I think [3] and [1] are questionable.
Let us begin with [3]. For [3] to be accurate, a divine command theory must entail that facts about right and wrong constitutively depend upon the attitudes of an observer. It is not enough that these facts depend upon God’s attitudes in some way or other. These attitudes must constitute moral facts in part or whole.
Why think that [3] is true? Presumably, the inference goes like this: If a divine command theory is true, then facts about right and wrong are identical with facts about what actions have been commanded by God. However, facts about what actions have been commanded and prohibited by God are constituted by facts about God’s attitudes. So, a divine command theory entails that facts about observers attitudes constitute deontic facts.
However, it is not evident that facts about what actions have been commanded and prohibited by God are constituted by facts about God’s attitudes. In the literature, it is common to distinguish divine command theories from divine will or attitude theories.[1] Divine will theories contend that God’s attitudes towards certain actions constitute deontological facts. By contrast, a divine command theory contends deontological facts are identical with facts about what actions have been commanded by God. Attitudes and commands are not the same things. Robert Adam’s stresses that “moral obligation is understood in terms of what God requires of us”. But, “requiring is something we do in relationship to each other it essentially involves communicative acts”. It is not logically equivalent to having a positive or negative attitude towards that action.
The difference between commanding and merely willing is significant. Divine command theorists like Adam’s defend a divine command theory because they believe “the will of a legislature imposes no obligations without being commanded”. To illustrate this, Adam’s provides some examples, where what a person desires or wills and what the command comes apart.
“Religiously, obedience to God is in large part a matter of respect for God; and interhuman examples suggest that respect would follow commands in preference to unexpressed desires. The wait staff in a restaurant show me benevolence, perhaps, but scant respect, if they bring me what they think I want instead of what I actually ordered.” [2]
So, when a divine command theorist claims deontological facts are identical with facts about what actions God commanded, it doesnt follow that God’s attitudes constitute these facts. To get that conclusion, we need to assume that commands are constituted by attitudes. Seeing someone can command X without a pro attitude towards it, and someone can have a pro attitude towards x without commanding this is not obvious.
This brings us to [1], Suppose divine command theories do entail moral facts constitutively depend upon an observer’s (i.e. God’s) attitudes. This is only problematic if our commitment to morality presupposes that moral facts are objective in this sense of the word. If we define an objective fact as a fact that does not constitutively, as opposed to causally, depend on an observer’s attitudes. It does not seem to me that [1] is true.
Objectivist metaethical theories’ plausibility consists of their accounting for and vindicating certain presuppositions of our moral thought and practice. Our moral thought and practice assume that beings like you and I can make mistaken judgements. We have limited information, are prone to biases, and make errors of fact and reason. We reason about morality to discern which evaluations our human compatriots are correct and which are not. We use reasons to support and verify some judgments and criticize others showing they are mistaken. We defend some of the evaluations of our society against criticisms.[3] We reject others as oppressive, immoral and in need of reform. We think our society made moral progress by rejecting slavery and racial segregation. We believe the Nazi’s evaluation of racism was mistaken, and Martin Luther King Juniors was closer to the truth. We think some moral reformers who criticized widely endorse policies were correct. They have given us a better understanding of what is right and wrong. We believe certain actions, like the rape and murder of a small child, are wrong even if I or my society endorsed them.
In Ethical Intuitionism, Huemer himself emphasises several of these assumptions. He notes (i) the judgements of Neo Nazi’s and Nazi society were mistaken. (ii) That we engage in real disagreement with our compatriots, but individually and collectively contradicting what they say and offering reasons for and against their judgements. (iii) That individuals and societies are not infallible moral judges and (iv) that human judgements can be based on arbitrary reasons.[4]
These assumptions presuppose moral facts obtain independently of the evaluation of human appraisers: appraisers like you and I who are subject to these cognitive deficiencies. Who are fallible, make mistakes, can be prejudiced and arbitrary, and ignorant of relevant facts. They do not presuppose that this independence is only constitutive. They do not assume this independence applies to all possible appraisers. Even an infallible omniscient, impartial appraiser upon whose will everything else depends for its existence.
Two examples will illustrate this. Take a crude relativist theory: where actions are morally required if and only if, and because, my social group approves of them. This theory is a paradigmatic example of a subjectivist theory. All most everyone rejects it because it contradicts the objectivist presuppositions of moral thought. Yet, according to Huemer’s view, whether this theory vindicates the objectivity of morality depends solely on whether societies approval causes or constitutes moral facts.
Suppose there are two versions of this theory. (a) One claims the property of being morally required is identical to the property of being socially approved. (b), Another claims my society can directly and immediately bring it about that I am required to do something by approving of it. Neither of these theories will vindicate the objectivists presuppositions of our moral thought. Both will entail that correct evaluation are co-extensive with the attitudes of my society. So, both will have implications that contradict the relevant presuppositions mentioned above. Nevertheless, in Huemer’s view, (b) entails that moral facts are objective and (a) does not. Consequently, a theory can vindicate the objectivity of morality, in Huemer’s sense of the word, yet fail to vindicate any objectivist presuppositions of our moral thought and practice.
A second example, consider a form of naturalistic moral realism whereby moral facts are facts about the causal properties of certain actions. Rightness just is the property an action has when it tends to increase or enhance our happiness. Wrongness just is the property an action has when it tends to diminish our happiness. This is a paradigmatic objectivist theory. It makes wrongness depend on facts about causal physical properties of actions. It vindicates the objectivist presuppositions of our moral thought and practice. The judgements human appraisers make about causal properties can fail to correspond to causal reality. Yet on Huemer’s view, whether this theory vindicates the objectivity of morality depends solely on what its advocates believe about the ontology of laws of nature.
Suppose John and Mary jointly develop and defend a theory of this sort. Although they agree on the ontology of moral facts, John and Mary have different views on the ontology of laws of nature. Mary is an atheist who accepts David Armstrong’s thesis that laws of nature are a form of natural necessity[5]. By contrast, John is a Theist who accepts the view of early modern scientists that laws of nature are just the laws by which God governs the natural world. He accepts Alvin Plantinga’s[6] and John Foster’s[7] defence of the thesis that Laws of nature are divine decrees.
John and Mary advocate the same meta-ethical theory. But, Huemer’s definition entails that Mary’s theory vindicates the objectivity of morality and John’s theory does not. Their thesis is that certain causal properties of actions constitute the wrongness of actions. John believes that causal laws are constituted by God’s willing certain regularities occur. So, John is committed to claiming that wrongness constitutively depends on God’s will. Mary has no such commitments.
However, this difference between Mary and John makes no difference whatsoever for how well their joint theory vindicates the objectivist assumptions of our moral discourse. Consequently, a theory can fail to vindicate the objectivity of morality in Huemer’s sense and yet vindicate all the objectivist features of our moral discourse.
If I am correct about this, the kind of objectivity presupposed by our moral commitments has nothing to do with whether moral facts are “constitutional” independent of any observer or appraiser.
[1] Examples of divine will theories include those of; Matthew Carey Jordan (2012),“Divine Attitudes, Divine Commands, and the Modal Status of Moral Truths,” Religious Studies 48: 45–60; Mark Murphy (1998), “Divine Command, Divine Will, and Moral Obligation,” Faith and Philosophy 15: 3–27; Christian Miller (2009), “Divine Desire Theory and Obligation,” in Yujin Nagasawa and Erik Wielenberg (eds.), New Waves in Philosophy of Religion (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan); and Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (2004), Divine Motivation Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
[2] Robert Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 260
[3] Think of the perennial moral debate between conservatives and progressives, which is over what social norms to preserve and defend and what to reform.
[4] Michael Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism, (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) 49-53.
[5] David Armstrong, What is a Law of Nature? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)
[6] Alvin Plantinga, “Law, Cause, and Occasionalism” Reason and Faith: Themes from Richard Swinburne, (Eds.) Michael Bergmann and Jeffrey E. Brower (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) 126-143.
[7] John Foster, The Divine Lawmaker: Lectures on Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)
