Back to the analogies
In writing my Masters thesis, I originally wanted a theory of ethics that I could both preach and practise. I was basing it on common human practice to begin with, on the notion that it would be enlightening to uncover certain basic unwritten rules of human conduct. Unfortunately, this approach was too "disturbing", according to my supervisor. He noted that a prior question was what, if anything, must be the relationship between morality and practice, so I ended up trying to answer that question through an appeal to the tradition of empiricism. My desire to keep morality consistent with general practice resulted in exploring a moral hypothesis consisting of a mild version of sociological functionalism. The rest of the thesis was therefore concerned with exploring problems for sociological functionalism. In this respect, I would have been quite happy to conclusively disconfirm the hypothesis, simply because the disconfirming observations would themselves yield a fresh hypothesis. The resulting process would, in other words, be to practise a dialectic with the observed world in the true spirit of empiricism. Nevertheless, for sheer reasons of space, I could do no more than write four chapters on problems with sociological functionalism before I had to draw the thesis to a close. Such was the enormity of what I was working towards, but all agreed that given this, what I had done so far was fully deserving of an MPhil.
If that is the case, then what were the observations that disconfirmed the hypothesis?
In a nutshell, indefinitely sustainable functional immorality. But these observations yielded another hypothesis, namely that social mores progress along lines analagous to scientific progress, i.e. moral evolution. This has been very fruitfully explored through analogies between ethics and the philosophy of science. They put forward a good case, in my opinion, for believing, more or less, that social mores progress through a process of falsification of the old mores.
The original moral hypothesis had me challenging any sharp line between sociological or anthropological issues and theorising about ethics. This hypothesis actually allows issues in theorising about ethics to be quite indepedent from sociological or anthropological sorts of issues. Ethical theories are ultimately confirmed or disconfirmed in the social laboratory and adopted or rejected accordingly. But there is never any need under this new model for one type of approach to be accountable to the other, so both can co-exist quite comfortably. Under this system, presumably most moral theories will reflect social mores, but a right of pure speculation will always be present. On the other hand, social mores will probably only even consider moral theories when there is an anomaly with the existing social mores. Under those circumstances, however, some intellectuals or other are usually there to bridge the gap with a moral theory or three. In other words, there is a clear relationship between the two different things, but they will always be to some extent two different things.
Well, that sounds like a continuous, logical train of thought originating in your Masters thesis. How does the original argument with the arseholes at your science fiction club fit in with that?
Well, I can simply discount the whole argument by reference to the fact that the farfetched examples were not empirically valid.
That presupposes that moral intuitions are experience-dependent, when we already decided that there were difficulties associated with that view. People can fiercely but hypocritically defend moral views, but obey a morality relative to what an absolute rejection of them would have been. I don't think that moral intuitions are necessarily experience-dependent. I think that social mores have to be viable as part of why we call them mores, but I do not think that the notion of experience-dependence is necessary to the focus on social mores at all. Indeed, the reason is simply that non-coercive agreement is reached through social mores, and they progress accordingly. In other words, my analogies between ethics and the philosophy of science are not really based on any notion of moral intuitions being experience-dependent at all. They are based purely on the idea that non-coercive agreement is only possible with real notions of right and wrong in the world. They are tested "in the trenches" rather than through abstract theorising.
But that suggests that moral intuitions are experience-dependent. By being forced to practice what you preach, you are forced to base your experience on your moral intuitions, and those intuitions than stand or fall on the basis of that experience. Hypocrisy does not fall under the category of social mores, but then hypocrisy lacks level 2 cogency to begin with. In other words, shouting someone's moral argument down does not produce non-coercive agreement, but practising what you preach does.
OK, I think that that is a better position to take than the notion that "actions speak louder than words". There will, however, still be certain difficulties to overcome, namely how does moral disagreement begin in such a society? Does it require, for example, that the people who disagree have made observations that falsify the society's ethos?
What it means is that such observations must be reproduceable for everyone in the society. If they are, then the opinions are stuck with, otherwise they are not.
Ah, but a counterexample to this situation will therefore be indefinitely sustainable moral disagreement. I agree that that would be a stranger state of affairs than indefinitely sustainable functional immorality, but it is not absurd either, and deserves exploration.
If that is the case, then what were the observations that disconfirmed the hypothesis?
In a nutshell, indefinitely sustainable functional immorality. But these observations yielded another hypothesis, namely that social mores progress along lines analagous to scientific progress, i.e. moral evolution. This has been very fruitfully explored through analogies between ethics and the philosophy of science. They put forward a good case, in my opinion, for believing, more or less, that social mores progress through a process of falsification of the old mores.
The original moral hypothesis had me challenging any sharp line between sociological or anthropological issues and theorising about ethics. This hypothesis actually allows issues in theorising about ethics to be quite indepedent from sociological or anthropological sorts of issues. Ethical theories are ultimately confirmed or disconfirmed in the social laboratory and adopted or rejected accordingly. But there is never any need under this new model for one type of approach to be accountable to the other, so both can co-exist quite comfortably. Under this system, presumably most moral theories will reflect social mores, but a right of pure speculation will always be present. On the other hand, social mores will probably only even consider moral theories when there is an anomaly with the existing social mores. Under those circumstances, however, some intellectuals or other are usually there to bridge the gap with a moral theory or three. In other words, there is a clear relationship between the two different things, but they will always be to some extent two different things.
Well, that sounds like a continuous, logical train of thought originating in your Masters thesis. How does the original argument with the arseholes at your science fiction club fit in with that?
Well, I can simply discount the whole argument by reference to the fact that the farfetched examples were not empirically valid.
That presupposes that moral intuitions are experience-dependent, when we already decided that there were difficulties associated with that view. People can fiercely but hypocritically defend moral views, but obey a morality relative to what an absolute rejection of them would have been. I don't think that moral intuitions are necessarily experience-dependent. I think that social mores have to be viable as part of why we call them mores, but I do not think that the notion of experience-dependence is necessary to the focus on social mores at all. Indeed, the reason is simply that non-coercive agreement is reached through social mores, and they progress accordingly. In other words, my analogies between ethics and the philosophy of science are not really based on any notion of moral intuitions being experience-dependent at all. They are based purely on the idea that non-coercive agreement is only possible with real notions of right and wrong in the world. They are tested "in the trenches" rather than through abstract theorising.
But that suggests that moral intuitions are experience-dependent. By being forced to practice what you preach, you are forced to base your experience on your moral intuitions, and those intuitions than stand or fall on the basis of that experience. Hypocrisy does not fall under the category of social mores, but then hypocrisy lacks level 2 cogency to begin with. In other words, shouting someone's moral argument down does not produce non-coercive agreement, but practising what you preach does.
OK, I think that that is a better position to take than the notion that "actions speak louder than words". There will, however, still be certain difficulties to overcome, namely how does moral disagreement begin in such a society? Does it require, for example, that the people who disagree have made observations that falsify the society's ethos?
What it means is that such observations must be reproduceable for everyone in the society. If they are, then the opinions are stuck with, otherwise they are not.
Ah, but a counterexample to this situation will therefore be indefinitely sustainable moral disagreement. I agree that that would be a stranger state of affairs than indefinitely sustainable functional immorality, but it is not absurd either, and deserves exploration.