Values as subjective but involuntary
This, of course, raises the question of what values actually are. In this respect, values can exist either "out there", or "in here", and if they exist "out there", then they inhere in objects, and if they exist "in here", then they inhere in subjects. Here is where my argument on subjectivity versus objectivity becomes significant. The only real reason to include this argument is simply that a lot of other people take this debate seriously, but I attempt to show in under a thousand words why I do not consider it a relevant issue. What is a far more relevant issue is the degree to which people can change their respective values, because this, it seems to me, is far more relevant to how much we should take ethics seriously.
This is what I take to be a common source of confusion when talking about ethical subjectivity. When many people think of subjectivity, they are probably thinking of a relatively strong thesis. This thesis is most likely something like Hamlet's famous claim in Act 2, Scene 2, that "there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so". It seems to me that ethics can inhere in subjects without in any way implying that anywhere, anyhow, "thinking something makes it so". In fact, it seems to me that if ethics is to be a non-arbitrary enterprise, then nowhere, nohow can thinking something make it so. This is because thoughts are largely subject to our voluntary control, but whatever is right or wrong in the world, one thing its rightness or wrongness will not be is subject to our voluntary control, for all kinds of absurdities would result if this were true. For example, I might be able simply to wake up in the morning and decide that today it will be moral to murder my enemies. I could go around and murder all my enemies. Then the next day I could wake up and decide that for the rest of my life it will be immoral for anyone else to retaliate against me for this action. Morality could be almost anything from one minute to the next if thinking something were all it took to make it so, and this would render moral judgements far too unstable to take the weight of the decisions that we ordinarily place upon them every day of our lives. Certainly they could not be taken seriously as a basis for such decisions.
To speak of values, it seems plausible that we can distinguish my values from those of someone else. But to claim this already seems to presuppose that values, if they do not inhere in subjects, at least pertain to subjects. But this is all that the word "subjective" really entails in the first place; it does not entail that thinking something makes it so, nor does it entail that values are subject to our voluntary control. In fact, it seems to me that the cause of why we do take values seriously is much to do with the fact that they are not subject to our voluntary control.
This is what I take to be a common source of confusion when talking about ethical subjectivity. When many people think of subjectivity, they are probably thinking of a relatively strong thesis. This thesis is most likely something like Hamlet's famous claim in Act 2, Scene 2, that "there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so". It seems to me that ethics can inhere in subjects without in any way implying that anywhere, anyhow, "thinking something makes it so". In fact, it seems to me that if ethics is to be a non-arbitrary enterprise, then nowhere, nohow can thinking something make it so. This is because thoughts are largely subject to our voluntary control, but whatever is right or wrong in the world, one thing its rightness or wrongness will not be is subject to our voluntary control, for all kinds of absurdities would result if this were true. For example, I might be able simply to wake up in the morning and decide that today it will be moral to murder my enemies. I could go around and murder all my enemies. Then the next day I could wake up and decide that for the rest of my life it will be immoral for anyone else to retaliate against me for this action. Morality could be almost anything from one minute to the next if thinking something were all it took to make it so, and this would render moral judgements far too unstable to take the weight of the decisions that we ordinarily place upon them every day of our lives. Certainly they could not be taken seriously as a basis for such decisions.
To speak of values, it seems plausible that we can distinguish my values from those of someone else. But to claim this already seems to presuppose that values, if they do not inhere in subjects, at least pertain to subjects. But this is all that the word "subjective" really entails in the first place; it does not entail that thinking something makes it so, nor does it entail that values are subject to our voluntary control. In fact, it seems to me that the cause of why we do take values seriously is much to do with the fact that they are not subject to our voluntary control.
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