Indefinitely sustainable disagreement of social mores.
A culture counts as a moral paradigm. Different paradigms are incommensurable, so that different cultures can quite realistically display indefinitely sustainable moral disagreements, but this cannot count as a refutation of our hypothesis. A legitimate refutation of the hypothesis must consist of an example of indefinitely sustainable moral disagreement within the same society, or culture. Note, however, that this must be a disagreement of social mores, not morals as they are abstractly theorised about. My hypothesis is that there is level 2 commensurability with mores, not morals.
It seems to me that a candidate for this type of disagreement is the abortion issue. It has been raging for a very long time, and shows no signs of abating anytime soon. Admittedly, once abortion becomes legalised, it does not seem as though there is any reversion to a previous state of illegality, so it would seem that according to empirical observation, there are fewer moral problems with abortion legal than illegal. However, this still leaves open the question of the moral status of the act of abortion. Simply that abortion is legal suggests at most that abortion is morally permissible, but this does not render abortion morally neutral or immoral. It may simply mean that the jury is out on the moral status of abortion, and that if abortion should be found to be immoral, then the law could get re-introduced.
Nevertheless, the fact that the historical trend is for abortion to go from being illegal to legal suggests something deeper. It seems strange that abortion should ever be made legal and then made illegal again at a later date once society decides that abortion is immoral. That is, a historical trend seems to be for societies to get more, rather than less, permissive. This suggests that once abortion becomes legal, its acceptance as morally neutral seems only a matter of time. But the claim that societies naturally tend to get more permissive over time is an empirical claim that can be tested itself.
It seems to me that that claim is probably too simplistic. Rather, I think that what is happening in this instance is that the moral disagreement is supervening over a metaphysical disagreement about the nature of what a person is, and whether the foetus is one. If the foetus is a person, then it seems difficult to hold the view that abortion is morally neutral. If, on the other hand, the foetus is not a person, then it also seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that abortion is morally neutral.
Similarly, I suspect that the metaphysical controversy emerges directly from a religious controversy. That is, how many people would claim that the foetus has a right to life based on a religious conviction, rather than a philosophical conviction? I suspect that this would be a very high percentage of people, although I have no statistics to back up this claim.
Actually, I can think of one reason that a debate like this would be interminable. In other areas where there has been a genuine falsification, an observation has provided this. For example, the observations about slave revolts falsified the slavery ethic, observations of capitalism falsified the hierarchical ethic, and observations of factory farming and animal research are falsifying the old proprietary animal ethic. Similarly, observations regarding coat hangers probably falsified notions that abortion ought to be legally prohibited in many cases. However, no clear observations exist that would falsify the beliefs that abortion is immoral or morally neutral. This is mainly because it is not at all clear just what people are looking at when they look at a zygote, or foetuses at various stages of development; are they people or not?
What happens if you graphically film an abortion taking place, and then let women decide what they want to do after that? Even a merely verbal description of the procedure of abortion can be gruesome. It seems to me that the abortion debate is an area rich for moral observations to be made and noted.
It seems to me that a candidate for this type of disagreement is the abortion issue. It has been raging for a very long time, and shows no signs of abating anytime soon. Admittedly, once abortion becomes legalised, it does not seem as though there is any reversion to a previous state of illegality, so it would seem that according to empirical observation, there are fewer moral problems with abortion legal than illegal. However, this still leaves open the question of the moral status of the act of abortion. Simply that abortion is legal suggests at most that abortion is morally permissible, but this does not render abortion morally neutral or immoral. It may simply mean that the jury is out on the moral status of abortion, and that if abortion should be found to be immoral, then the law could get re-introduced.
Nevertheless, the fact that the historical trend is for abortion to go from being illegal to legal suggests something deeper. It seems strange that abortion should ever be made legal and then made illegal again at a later date once society decides that abortion is immoral. That is, a historical trend seems to be for societies to get more, rather than less, permissive. This suggests that once abortion becomes legal, its acceptance as morally neutral seems only a matter of time. But the claim that societies naturally tend to get more permissive over time is an empirical claim that can be tested itself.
It seems to me that that claim is probably too simplistic. Rather, I think that what is happening in this instance is that the moral disagreement is supervening over a metaphysical disagreement about the nature of what a person is, and whether the foetus is one. If the foetus is a person, then it seems difficult to hold the view that abortion is morally neutral. If, on the other hand, the foetus is not a person, then it also seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that abortion is morally neutral.
Similarly, I suspect that the metaphysical controversy emerges directly from a religious controversy. That is, how many people would claim that the foetus has a right to life based on a religious conviction, rather than a philosophical conviction? I suspect that this would be a very high percentage of people, although I have no statistics to back up this claim.
Actually, I can think of one reason that a debate like this would be interminable. In other areas where there has been a genuine falsification, an observation has provided this. For example, the observations about slave revolts falsified the slavery ethic, observations of capitalism falsified the hierarchical ethic, and observations of factory farming and animal research are falsifying the old proprietary animal ethic. Similarly, observations regarding coat hangers probably falsified notions that abortion ought to be legally prohibited in many cases. However, no clear observations exist that would falsify the beliefs that abortion is immoral or morally neutral. This is mainly because it is not at all clear just what people are looking at when they look at a zygote, or foetuses at various stages of development; are they people or not?
What happens if you graphically film an abortion taking place, and then let women decide what they want to do after that? Even a merely verbal description of the procedure of abortion can be gruesome. It seems to me that the abortion debate is an area rich for moral observations to be made and noted.
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