Moral bedrock
This chapter is on bedrock. If we keep digging, intellectually, introspectively, with open and curious minds, where do we end up? When it comes to the normative, the moral, the transcendent, the sacred it’s all too easy to get lost in vague language and truisms about the purported divine. For this reason, I want to explore what happens when we seek to establish as firm a foundation as possible from which we can build the edifice of moral meaning.
The multitude of failed attempts at uncovering fundamental grounding for morality throughout the history of philosophy is not lost on me. Many of the greats have constructed ingenious arguments claiming to have grounded morality once and for all in axioms so obvious, so self-evident that no rational creature could reasonably reject.
I will show that whenever one tries to ground morality as conventionally understood post-Enlightenment, the scaffolding of beliefs which follow ultimately rests on a foundation of sand. Ask “why” enough times and you eventually find yourself running in circles or planting arbitrary flags in the ground.
Does that mean morality is doomed? It does not. It means that we have to start our search for normative truths in our actual beliefs, in the desires we actually have. Not ones we “should” have. That is the starting point of the morality I will build starting here. Any disagreement about the prescriptions of this moral theory would amount to a rejection of what you already desire in the first place, a performative contradiction.
Post-teardown, at first this might look like ethical egoism, but I promise you it’s so much more. From this soil and toil a beautiful flower of purpose will blossom, but it will take careful attention and patience. This is the first step towards Neo-Hermeticism.
Only once we tear down he edifice of confused moral thinking can we rebuild moral thinking. The moral can only come from a transformation of the "soul". Through a process of iterative ascension, through psychological development. Plato and Plotinus knew this. The Gnostics knew this. The Hermetics knew this. Their wisdom carried out in the spiritual traditions of the West ultimately impacting the intuitions that you carry with you, whether you know it yet or not.
Unpacking the First Question
Now that we have a better understanding of the different types of normative theories, we can start to think about how they answer the First Question. A word of caution: this is going to take a bit of concentration to track. We’re going to raise, answer, and raise several questions tracing several threads so it pays to read it slowly. I’ve done my best to clearly mark what questions and answers we’re dealing with. For additional clarity, I’ve added a flow chart to track it all. So without further ado, let’s start with the first follow up question to “what should I do?”
The natural first question to ask is:
Q1: should in what sense?
As we established in the last section, there’s a) the moral sense, and b) the practical or Humean rationality sense. Forming candidate answers for each of these we get:
A1(a): Should in the moral sense.
A1(b): Should in the practically rationality sense.
Let’s start with A1(a): how does morality answer the First Question? Morality answers by judging an action as either right, wrong, or permissible. The justification, explanation, or reasons for this judgment of course depends on the moral theory.
A Kantian might talk about how an action affects everyone’s well being. A deontologist might talk about whether an individual violates one’s dignity. A virtue ethicist might talk about whether an action is characteristic of what a virtuous person would do. A contractualist might talk about how an action violates the terms of some social contract. The point is, it depends on the moral theory we’re using.
So of course the natural next question to ask is: Which moral theory?
But in trying to answer the question of which moral theory we can ask:
Which moral theory should I use?
That, of course, loops us back around to (Q1)
We can also ask:
Which moral theory do I actually use?
The answer to that question changes from person to person. While we can try to distill everyone’s moral dispositions into something which fits into one of the big 4 moral theory boxes, the truth of the matter is that we all have a hodgepodge of vague moral intuitions more closely resembling Moral Particularism (think neural network, not simple closed form mathematical model.) For the sake of being charitable to our actual moral beliefs, let’s assume we can formalize any given person’s moral theory into some moral theory T. This may or may not be as simple as a few general principles as is the case in the big 4, or (more likely) it’s some function which maps input considerations onto output moral judgements of right, permissible and wrong which is oftentimes difficult to interpret as human understandable principles. In any case, whether one’s operating moral theory is simple, or a black box, the fact remains: we simply don’t always want to do the actions that T prescribes. We don’t always want to do what we think is moral. At that point we will naturally ask ourselves:
Why should I follow the prescriptions of T?
This is often phrased as "why be moral?" Which is tantamount to asking "why should I be moral?" That brings us right back to (Q1).
(A1a) is a nonstarter. That means we cannot answer the First Question with a moral prescription justified by, well, morality. Reasonable enough. But as you'll soon see, this becomes a bit of a problem the further we take this.
Humean rationality
As I outlined in chapter 3, Humean rationality gives prescriptions on the condition that one wants/desires/values something (I’ll use “desire” as a synonym for all 3): do X, if you desire D. We’re then forced to wrestle with the question of which desires? A natural question to ask is:
Which desires should I have?
Which brings us back to (Q1). That doesn’t work. Let’s try working with the desires we actually have. Thus we ask:
Q2: Which desires do I actually have?
The desire to be moral
There is one desire in particular worth taking the time to isolate from the rest: the desire to be moral. This shows itself in two ways. The first is to follow whatever moral theory one actually believes, formalized as T, but we’ve seen how that plays out. The other is to follow the “correct” moral theory which we will denote:
The desire to follow the correct moral theory.
At first glance, a noble consideration. But we must keep digging. We naturally ask:
Q3: Which moral theory is correct?
That, of course, depends on which criteria we’re using to evaluate “correctness”. The correct moral theory is only so due to it maximally satisfying some list of desiderata, some criteria which reflects what we want out of a moral theory. Now we need to think about which criteria to use for evaluating whether to adopt one moral theory over another.
As always, we might be inclined to ask:
Which criteria should I use for selecting criteria?
Back to (Q1) we go. Let’s try instead:
Which criteria do I actually use for selecting criteria?
Moral theory
An answer comes from Mark Timmons’ Moral Theory. He first identifies two aims of a moral theory as we typically use the term: the theoretical aim, and the practical aim.
“Theoretical aim: The main theoretical aim of a moral theory is to discover those underlying features of actions, persons, and other items of moral evaluation that make them right or wrong, good or bad.
Practical aim: The main practical aim of a moral theory is to provide a decision procedure whose use by suitably informed agents will reliably lead them to correct moral verdicts about matters of moral concern in contexts of moral deliberation and choice”
The theoretical goal of a moral theory is to tie together certain key moral concepts like right, wrong, good, bad, and presumably, reason, desire, motivation, preference, and more. In short, it’s about providing an explanation as to why a prescription was given using the language of those listed moral concepts. The practical aim extends beyond just giving prescriptions like we said above. It’s not just prescriptions for action, but prescriptions which are reliable, and “correct” (relative to the theoretical aim).
Timmons distills from these aims, which we will operate on going forward, certain criteria to use when evaluating a moral theory. This gives us our answer to which criteria do we actually use?
Consistency: A moral theory should be consistent in the sense that its principles, together with relevant factual information, yield consistent moral verdicts about the morality of actions, persons, and other objects of moral evaluation
Determinacy: A moral theory should feature principles which, together with relevant factual information, yield determinate moral verdicts about the morality of actions, persons, and other objects of evaluation in a wide range of cases.
Applicability: The principles of a moral theory should be applicable in the sense that they specify relevant information about actions and other items of evaluation that human beings can typically obtain and use to arrive at moral verdicts on the basis of those principles.
Intuitive Appeal: A moral theory should develop and make sense of various intuitively appealing beliefs and ideas about morality.
Internal Support: A moral theory whose principles, together with relevant factual information, logically imply our considered moral beliefs, receives support--internal support--from those beliefs. On the other hand, if the principles of a theory have implications that conflict with our considered moral beliefs, this is evidence against the correctness of the theory.
External Support: The fact that the principles of a moral theory are suported by nonmoral beliefs and assumptions, including well-established beliefs and assumptions from various areas of nonmoral inquiry, is some evidence in its favor. On the other hand, the fact that the principles conflict with established nonmoral beliefs and assumptions is evidence against the theory.
Explanatory Power: A moral theory should feature principles that explain our more specific considered moral beliefs, thus helping us understand why actions, persons, and other objects of moral evaluation are right or wrong, good or bad, have or lack moral worth.
Publicity: The principles of a moral theory should be such that they do not rule out as impermissible making public (by, for example, teaching) the principles and associated moral theory. Moral theories whose principles rule out such teaching fail to satisfy this standard.
Publicity appeals to the practical aim of morality. If morality is about guiding actions, and morality can’t be taught, then that moral theory seems to fail to live up to its practical aim.
At this point it should be emphasized that all of these criteria (in theory) fall out of the two aims of morality previously established: the theoretical aim and the practical aim. Some of these are controversial, particularly the intuitive appeal and publicity criteria. Even putting those two aside, the picture these criteria paint of what a moral theory is extends beyond what we said a moral theory was above (universalizable, and objective). We now know that a moral theory has two aims, and from those two aims various criteria can be used as a litmus test for any proposed candidate theory to see if they successfully live up to the purported aim of moral theories in the first place.
Consistency because if one of the aims of morality is to be a decision procedure (practical aim), and a moral theory says an action is both obligatory and wrong at the same time, this fails to provide a helpful decision procedure.
Determinacy because, similar to consistency, if the practical aim of morality is to provide guidance, then not yielding determinate prescriptions is failing to live up to this goal.
Applicability because if a moral theory requires details not typically accessible to people, this is unhelpful in achieving it’s practical aim.
Explanatory power is included on the list due to the theoretical aim of morality: what is it about X that makes it right? What features result in that classification? These are all different ways of saying “we want an explanation” and thus the criteria is included on Timmons list.
External support amounts to saying, our moral theories must be compatible with our best non-moral theories. If our best explanation of everything we’ve been in contact with is explainable with a collection of certain scientific theories, then a moral theory which relies on assumptions that are either extra to, or contrary to these theories should be discarded. I will include phenomenology as a type of “first person subjective” science in this definition so as to not reduce everything to traditional science (i.e. scientism).
Intuitive appeal and internal support seem to be saying the same thing but are subtly different. Intuitive appeal refers to our intuitions about what morality is about. We often think morality is about wellbeing, is rooted in human nature, and as we argued above, is universalizable, and is objective, etc. Internal support, on the other hand, is about intuitive moral beliefs, not beliefs about morality. These are beliefs not about what sort of thing morality is, but what specifically is right or wrong. One example is: torturing innocents for fun is wrong.
Great! Now we can answer (Q3): which moral theory is the correct moral theory? The anticlimactic answer is, it doesn’t matter! It could be some version of consequentialism, deontology, contractualism, or even Parfit’s Triple Theory which argues they converge (that’d be pretty neat). Maybe it’s a set of moral theories and we’re left with no way of choosing between the finalists. Or maybe it’s none of the above. If it ends up that no moral theory survives the selection process. If that were the case, we’d be done with this avenue of exploration. If at least one theory survives we might want to know which theory? After all, that is the entire point of the branch of moral philosophy called “normative ethics”. In the end, however, it doesn’t matter which theory, if any, comes out on top because the final and most important question that we’re going to ask applies equally to all moral theories. Let’s say our answer to (Q3) is:
Theory T is the correct moral theory.
T will therefore give us prescriptions answering the First Question. But just as with our previous consideration of the moral theory we actually use, when T prescribes X, and we want to do not-X, we’re naturally going to ask:
Q5(a): Why should I follow the prescriptions of T?
Back to the drawing board (Q1).
Actual desires
Now that we have the moral desires out of the way, we can focus on the much broader answer to (Q2) "which desires do I actually have?" We have to first note that our desires change over time. This leads us to ask:
(Q4) My desires at which point in time?
To which there are two main answers: A4(a) my desires and meta-desires weighted by intensity and duration over the span of my life, and A4(b) my present desires and meta-desires (weighted by present intensity). Grounding rationality in A4(a) gives us what Parfit in Reasons and Persons calls the self-interest theory, denoted S. The central claim of S is:
S1: For each person, there is one supremely rational ultimate aim: that his life go, for him, as well as possible (§1)
Parfit uncovers at least 12 other possible theorems of S by applying S1 to intentions, actions, dispositions under various thought experiments. He also flags at least 4 ways of understanding "as well as possible" in what he calls "theories about self-interest" (Reasons and Persons, Appendix I).
Hedonism: "What would be best for someone is what would make his life happiest" where there is room for debate over whether happiness is a single unified feeling (narrow-hedonism) or not whether happiness is proportionate to preference ordering (preference-hedonism).
Desire-fulfillment: "What would be best for someone is what, throughout his life, would best fulfill his desires" where there's debate over whether someone being aware that their desires were satisfied matters (unrestricted theory) or not (success theory).
Objective-list: "Certain things are good or bad for us, whether or not we want to have the good things, or to avoid the bad things".
Composite: Where what is best for someone is not simply experience (hedonism), or simply things like knowledge or beauty (objective-list), but is rather their composite.
Thankfully, like moral theory T, we need not distinguish which is the best. This is because the key line in S1 isn't "as well as possible" but rather, "that his life go...". What happens if what would be best for my life (measured with whichever theory of self-interest you prefer) isn't what I most want to do? In other words, why should I? Back to (Q1).
This leaves us with our final choice, A4(b) "my present desires and meta-desires. This gives us what Parfit calls present-aim theory, or P. And so we complete our flowchart.
And with that, we've reached the end of our journey. Morality too falls prey to the Münchhausen trilemma. What should I do bottoms out in what we most want to do in the present moment. That seems... unsatisfactory. Where's the spirituality? The mysticism? The transcendent nature of normativity? Are we really doomed to saying the only justified act is "whatever I feel like"? The answer is no. See, what I haven't done is properly define exactly what P is. Not only is the devil in the details but more importantly, I would argue, are the roles that meta-desires play in all of this. They will be the bridge between semi-nihilistic present-aim theory, and the rich tapestry of action-guidance and meaning found in moral and spiritual traditions for the last several thousand years.
