Moral Skepticism

A short post for today discussing the scepticism we have towards concepts of morality. Now the original purpose of this blog was actually about expressing skepticism towards a number of common held beliefs. In face the name of the blog derives from a moral error theory. It's unusual in that moral skepticism, in comparison to other types of skepticism, seems very popular.

I think the popularity of moral skepticism for non philosophers arises from two main views, or claims:

1) The notion of cultural relativism and moral subjectivity; what one person thinks is moral is different to what another person thinks is moral. In certain cultures we have certain activities that are promoted, some of which would seem immoral to some of us. The claim is often that we shouldn't take some form of moral high ground in assuming our system is better than there's.

2) A rejection of God. This is important because often proponents of objective morality justify their belief on the basis of an arbiter called God that decides the objectivity of morality. For those who reject the existence of a God who explains this objectivity, it might be difficult to think how morality could otherwise be objective.

Taking these main points together, certain people might argue that since morality differs between people, it must be subjective.

I won't discuss responses to this argument in this post (I'm undecided myself actually). Instead I'm going to note a few rather interesting things in play here.

The first thing to note is that this does not mean that one must forsake a notion of morality. Indeed very few proponents of the view would actually conclude from this that morality is a broken notion and that we are free to do anything. It is common instead to provide a debunking argument that explains why we might think that there is some type of objective morality, even if there is not. This is a second order notion; it is independent of the argument of whether morality is objective or not. Note that the subjectivists can claim that their own individual morality exists, but this is usually too weak for practical purposes; most of them continue to believe in a moral system to judge the actions of others, and such a view would not allow this. Common types of debunking arguments are to claim that morality is somehow socially constructed. Perhaps it is just a way for those in power to control us, or perhaps it is induced in order to produce social optimum.

Another thing to note is that moral objectivism does not necessarily depend on the existence of a God. Typically we think of moral objectivity as simply being mind independent. All we'd be saying is that certain moral properties are instantiated in some sense. That an action could in theory take the property of being bad. This does not commit us to thinking that our own view of morality is the correct one. It's certainly possible that we're all wrong. Of course this view also has certain dangers such as moral luck.

My second observation is a comparison to epistemic scepticism. One might be familiar of Descarte's evil demon where Descartes discusses the possibility that all his senses could be manipulated by some kind of evil demon. As a result, he is very limited in terms of what he actually knows as he is unable to verify whether he is being deceived or not. Applying this type of argument, since we are unable to verify whether we are being deceived or not, we are unable to confirm whether or not we have hands. As a result it might be claimed that we do not know that we have hands. Now what I find rather interesting is that a lot of epistemology deals with tackling scepticism; finding some way to maintain our common sense views. When I discuss such notions with others they seem to be on this side. They recognise the argument and understand the logic, but they too wish to deny it. They just aren't willing to accept the claim that they don't know if they have hands. This phenomena is rather interesting. Many people will try and argue against epistemic skepticism but seem willing to embrace ethical skepticism.

I wonder what it is that draws people towards this view, especially given that moral subjectivity in some sense seems completely counter intuitive. What is perhaps equally bizarre is why so many philosophers are so desperate to counter it.

Group membership problem

One may be familiar with the terrorist attacks that occurred today. One might also be aware of possible reactions to the attack in blaming a particular religion and / or their followers. There's often a reaction movement against the claim that this is the fault of the religion itself, or the fault of the individuals of the religion. It is argued that the religion itself is not at fault because despite self identification of the perpetrator, 'real' members would not commit such an act. This type of argument (call it SIP), if successful, would also absolve responsibility from the other members of the religion.

I think this type of argument has certain merits and directs us towards asking some really important questions:

1) Given a group of individuals, how can I tell whether a given individual belongs to the group? I call this the Group Identification Problem (GIP)

2) Suppose that an individual belongs to a group, to what extent are the other members of the group responsible for the actions of the individual? I call this the Group Responsibility Problem. (GRP)

Let's abstract some details from our original problem. We have an agent $A$ who commits a extremely bad action (I don't think many will dispute that terrorist acts are bad) $Y$. Agent $X$ claims that action $Y$ is on behalf of (and is motivated by) group $G$ (or its corresponding beliefs $B_G$), which they also claim to be a member of.

Now the SIP argument which is presented obviously wants to distance the action of agent $A$ from the group $G$. Let's consider the case sensitive responses to GIP and GRP. Broadly speaking, the claim is that any agent who happens to commit an action like $Y$ can not be a member of $G$. Plausibly it might also be argued that
even if agent was genuinely a member of group $G$, it was not on behalf of the Group (or not motivated correctly by $B_G$. Further, even if it was on behalf of the group this would not (or might not) place blame on the other members of the group who did not act in this way.

Now in the case specific sense, these arguments might well be correct. Yet remember that we would like to understand why this may the case; we would like to develop a universal theory for resolving GPI and GRP. Let's focus first on GIP.

What does it mean to belong to a group? In certain groups there are formal membership criterion's (for example you'd have to pay for membership to a Gym ) whilst others are less discrete, relying on the endorsement of certain beliefs or actions (e.g. A vegetarian or a Christian).

Now with regards to the formal membership criterion case, it seems rather easy to respond to GIP. The group basically has a reductive characteristic function, where we can easily verify if a member is of the group or not. In this case, we can avoid the subjectivity (or at least in the vast majority of cases).

The second type of case is much harder because it experiences what we might call Membership vagueness. It is vague with regards to whether a member belongs to the group. For example, suppose that we have a person who claims to be a Labour supporter. Plausibly, we think it is possible to support labour without having to be a member of the Labour party. In fact being a member seems to be neither a necessary nor sufficient condition. Now, suppose that this individual claims to like all of the current Labour policies except one of them. Is it true that this person is actually a labour supporter?

Or another example, is it possible for someone to be a Christian but not believe everything in the Bible literally? Presumably it is, unless one really wishes to an extremely strict belief system that also holds that the universe was created in 7 days. So it seems that plausibly someone could be Christian and not believe everything from the Bible. Now, what if someone claims to be a Christian but does not believe that Jesus was the Son of God (or is holy in some sense), although is willing to accept the different ethical lessons. In this case it seems that it would wrong to say that said person was a Christian. I think this example captures something rather important. We might think that Christianity and its associated group has certain critically important parts of it, that one must adopt if they are to be part of the group. We can call this the Group Essence.

So plausibly it can be argued that one can not be a Christian without in some way endorsing Jesus or believing his existence. Is this enough? Possibly, although some would argue that you would also need to accept a number of his teachings. What seems reasonable however is to think that in order to be part of a group, one must minimally satisfy the Group essence (whatever this is); it is a necessary condition (and possibly sufficient).

Another important thing we should ask is whether self identification is even relevant. Does it make a difference whether I self identify to being a member of a group, or is GIP entirely solved by external factors (including Group Essence). Consider the following example: suppose I endorse gender equality but I feel that the entire feminist movement is destructive because they go about achieving gender equality incorrectly. Instead I identify as Egalitarian. It might be reasonably claimed that anyone who agrees with gender equality is in virtue of this, feminist. That is, the Group Essence of being a feminist is believing in gender equality and in this instance it is also a sufficient condition.

Intuitively, there seems to be something rather harsh about such forceful membership. Plausibly we might think that certain branches of men's rights movements are fundamentally motivated by achieving gender equality (resolving instances when men are discriminated against on the basis of gender), does this mean that anyone who is feminist is also committed to being a member of this Group?

A final factor that affects GIP is a question of sincerity (conscious or unconscious). Suppose I claim that I satisfy the conditions of being in the group, and then I go about and do something that lies in contrary to the Group Essence. Does this mean that I would be excluded from the group on that basis? Or am I still a member, just a bad one at that? I think most people would believe the former; that if I go against the group essence that I'm not part of the group. Unfortunately however there are difficulties when we allow for human interpretation to dictate what goes against Group Essence. If I a feminist and I organise a woman's networking event on the grounds of gender equality (but don't allow men to participate) am I going against the Group essence? Presumably not, but there certainly seems to be argument. How about if I am a Christian but I commit different sins? Does that strip me away from my Group membership? Or are such sins irrelevant to the Christian Group essence?

I've discussed some very difficult issues in resolving GIP. What is the Group essence? Does self identification matter? If I go against Group principals do I lose group membership? It is important to consider such problems, although unfortunately they do make a resolution to GIP rather difficult.

Let's return back to our SIP argument and see if we can make any headway. The first thing is we need to ask is what is the Group essence of a given religion? (Note if there is formal membership criterion then this could just be the group essence and it would be necessary and sufficient). If a member commits an action on behalf of Group beliefs as well as self identifies, does this grant them group membership? Does interpretation matter here; i.e. If they interpret the group beliefs in a certain destructive manner, would this affect whether they belong to the Group? I think in response to this final question, we are probably forced into a 'reasonability' criterion, where the interpretation must be reasonable. Note that I am in general skeptical about questions about interpretation; it seems to me that it is often used (in connection with context dependence) as a universal defence of problems with certain ideas that are historically based (but still referred to). There seems to be a certain common sense required where we are to take 'obvious' interpretations as also 'reasonable'. (I.e. If a book told me that killing was wrong, then it is a reasonable interpretation to understand this in the literal sense.)

Because I don't intend to write a 10000 word essay, I'm going to discuss the remaining issues, including all of GRP in another post. In terms of what I think though, group membership should be rather relaxed in our specific case. Given that it is so simple to become a member of a religion, it seems incorrect to exclude such members who commit destructive acts from the group. I do accept that this depends on the Group essence, although I am skeptical whether they betray it, given reasonability constraints of interpretation.

What I do think however is that even if such individuals belong to a specific Group (in this case religion), this need not necessarily mean that the group itself is at fault, or the other members of the group. What it does suggest to me however is that the beliefs that motivate the members may be problematic.

Reductive Analysis

In Mathematics we often create or consider different structures and properties that can be reductively understood in terms of others. For example, the definition of finite set in Set theory can be formally understand as the property that holds when every injective function on the set is bijective, and when it satisfies a well order. Mathematics thrives on being able to build these sort of links between difference branches. We can connect algebra and topology by understanding fundamental groups.

Given the similarity between Mathematics and Philosophy, we might hope that we can employ the same sort of notions in resolving Philosophical problems. If we could reduce a philosophically difficult concept into a series of other conditions that we do understand, we can reductively understand the original concept. This approach is extremely tempting to apply when we seem to deal with certain topics that have an intuitive basis and seem to imply other notions.

For example, it seems that we have an intuitive understanding of what it means to Know. We link certain ideas with knowledge; truth, belief, infallibility, mental states, abilities. It seems reasonable to suggest that we could attempt to understand Knowledge by trying to see how these other concepts relate to how we use or apply the concept of knowledge. Certainly it seems plausible to think that if I know that $P$, then it must be the case that I believe that $P$, or that it is true that $P$. To think this is to suggest that they are necessary conditions for knowledge, which implies an important logical relationship. The thought might go that if we could find these different necessary conditions for knowledge then perhaps we would be able to find sufficient conditions for knowledge. From here, we might be able to even develop a reductive analysis of Knowledge by turning it into a series of conjunctive properties. That is, we'd be be able to say that "I know that $P \iff \phi$".

In this way, we'd in theory be able to take our concept of knowledge that we are struggling with, and simply check whether it satisfies some different conditions in $\phi$, that we presumably do understand. As one can see, finding such a reductive analysis for these concepts would be incredibly helpful as it would allow us to quickly pinpoint the salient conditions. I personally think however that as tempting as this is, reductive analysis is a dangerous road to go down.

Unlike in Mathematics where we are bound by certain rules and are able to at completely independent of reality, Philosophy lies in a strange position where it lacks these axiomatic rules to stand upon. The only thing it plausibly has is the basis of informal logical argument, and even this might lie on shaky ground.  This isn't to think that no concepts can be reduced - A bachelor is reductively analysable to unmarried adult male. I think however that philosophical concepts that have a reductive analysis are in fact in a rarity, and that it is the wrong approach to search for this analysis. Mathematics perhaps can be build upon a series of necessary and sufficient conditions because it uses formal logic as a foundation. There does not seem to be an obvious reason why the same would apply to philosophical notions that can often depend on heuristic notions.

Perhaps one is aware of the attempts to reductively analyse the concept of Knowledge. An initial attempt was to postulate the tripartite analysis; to think that one has knowledge if one has a justified true belief. Whilst we might intuitively think that this is plausible, there appear to be a number of issues in our way. The first is that such a claim doesn't seem to be analytic in that it doesn't just follow from the definition of Knowledge. So it seems that we are unable to verify that this claim is true via pure logic. In particular one might think that such approach is circular given our task is to understand the notion of Knowledge (which would then fuel development of a definition). Thus without this foundation, it seems that we must use other tools that depend on informal reasoning and argument to assess the validity of our reduction of Knowledge

One common way that Philosophers do this is by considering different thought experiments that is meant to elicit different intuitions. In response to our Tripartite analysis, we might consider the case of a broken clock, with its hands stuck at 2pm. Now when we look at the Clock it says it is 2pm, and presumably this justifies us in thinking that it is 2pm. Imagine however that the instance we look at the clock, it actually is 2pm. It seems now that we have satisfied our three conditions (justified true belief), yet it seems rather odd to think that we actually know that it is 2pm. Plausibly this suggests that our reductive analysis is missing something. Although since our method of verification is not purely logical, such an assertion is also not direct. It seems to rely on an element of judgement, and it is not at all obvious how we ought to assess this.

Regardless, such a thought experiment seems to suggest that the notion of knowledge can not be reduced to these three conditions. Yet this does not deny that such conditions are irrelevant, even if they might not be logically related. One might think that it is possible to construct further examples that would challenge our intuitions that knowledge relies on belief or even truth. What is rather interesting is that we seem regardless justified in suggesting that notions of truth, belief and justification are still pertinent to Knowledge. In stark contrast with Mathematics, counter examples do not seem to entirely render invalid different relations. It seems that we can consider different concepts and say that they are related to others without them having any logical relationship in terms of necessary or sufficient conditions

Thus I think that our attempts to understand Philosophy via reduction is missing something foundational about concepts that lack necessary connection via logical stability. Many concepts miss out on generating if and only if connections, yet our study of such notions still seem to capture important details of ideas, perhaps even their intrinsic nature. The way they are linked is just not via a logic that an be universally processed in the way that Mathematics can. It is different, and I think we're missing something in our philosophical investigation if we fail to respect this.