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2 Skepticism About Ethics

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

• Explain what it means to be a moral skeptic.

• Explain the notion of moral relativism and how it differs from moral objectivity.

• Discuss challenges to relativism.

• Explain the notion of egoism and how it differs from the notion that moral standards are unconditional.

• Discuss Glaukon’s challenge from Plato’s Republic and identify the main claims made in the story.

Section 2.1 Introduction to Skepticism

2.1 Introduction to Skepticism In contemporary usage, skepticism means a doubt that a belief or claim is true. We often use this word to refer to general doubts about all claims of a particular sort. For example, a reli- gious skeptic might have doubts about claims pertaining to the existence of God, the possibil- ity of knowing anything about God, and so on. A global warming skeptic might doubt claims that human activity is the main cause of average global temperature rise, or a 9/11 “truther” might be skeptical about claims that the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., were exclusively the doings of al-Qaida (as opposed to being supported by the U.S. gov- ernment). Likewise, many people regard the claims of politicians, salespersons, and media personalities with doubt and suspicion.

Similarly, a moral skeptic—in the way we will be using this term here—will doubt common beliefs about morality itself. It is important to note that we are not referring to people who doubt specific moral claims, such as the claim that eating animals is wrong or that abortion is morally justified. Nor are we referring to those who doubt the truth of certain general moral theories or principles, such as utilitarianism or deontology. If we recall the discussion of the landscape of moral philosophy from Chapter 1, claims about concrete moral problems like eating animals or abortion fall under applied ethics, while claims about the general rules, principles, and values that should inform our judgments and choices fall under normative ethics. The kind of skepticism we are discussing in this chapter involves the more basic kinds of claims that fall under the scope of metaethics.

Specifically, we will consider the reasons one might hold doubts about two commonly assumed features of morality itself:

1. Moral standards are objective. 2. Moral standards are unconditional.

The forms of moral skepticism we will consider in this chapter raise doubts about those two features.

1. Relativism doubts whether moral standards are objective, instead maintaining that they are only true or false relative to a culture or individual.

2. Egoism doubts whether moral standards are unconditional, instead maintaining that they are only good if they serve an individual’s self-interest, which in turn implies that it may be better for individuals to act contrary to moral standards if they can.

We will focus a section of this chapter on each of these. First, however, it is important to note three features common to each form of skepticism.

First, skepticism is not mere doubting or contradicting. One can doubt a claim without hav- ing any basis for doing so, and one can contradict any claim by merely saying the opposite of what another person says. Neither of these are worth taking seriously by themselves, because there is no good reason for those doubts or contradictions.

The kinds of moral skepticism we will examine aim to provide such reasons. Indeed, the word skepticism itself comes from the Greek word skeptesthai, meaning “to examine” or “to consider.” Since the skeptic uses reason to undermine certain assumptions about morality,

Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

we have every right to test the strength of his or her reasons. Perhaps doing so will lead us to question whether the reasons to doubt morality are good reasons (we might even become skeptical of the skeptics, so to speak). In other words, being skeptical about morality does not mean that one has abandoned the use of reason in thinking about what morality is, why it matters, and related issues. We should therefore approach skeptical views with as much criti- cal thought as a skeptic approaches the views he or she calls into question.

Second, the general features of morality that skeptics question—such as its objectivity and unconditionality—are ones that most moral systems take for granted. Accordingly, skeptics of morality generally provide an alternative explanation for why most people take these fea- tures for granted. A skeptic will have to explain why certain assumptions about morality have such a grip on us, despite the fact that we are deeply misguided (as they would claim). In addition, just as we can test the strength of the skeptic’s reasons for doubt, we can test the strength of his or her alternative explanation.

Third, we mentioned previously that the kind of skepticism we consider in this chapter is not primarily concerned with applied ethical issues like abortion or eating animals; nor does it focus on the general principles, rules, and values with which normative ethics is primarily concerned. Rather, it questions metaethical ideas like moral objectivity or unconditionality. However, questioning these ideas can have significant implications with respect to norma- tive and applied ethics.

The relation between metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics is comparable to the way we might think of a house. The strength of the roof depends on the strength of the house’s framework—the walls, support beams, and so on. But the framework needs a strong founda- tion if it is to support the roof. If the foundation has serious problems (e.g., the concrete has major cracks, the ground is giving way), then the support system will be unstable. If the sup- port system is unstable, then the roof is weak and liable to give way. We can think of concrete moral judgments as the “roof,” normative theories as the “framework,” and metaethics as the “foundation.” Moral skepticism questions the strength of the foundation, and, by implication, the strength of the framework and roof.

As we examine the different forms of skepticism, we should ask ourselves if the skeptic has provided good reasons to be skeptical of our common beliefs and assumptions about ethics. Has he or she provided a satisfactory alternative explanation for why we have these common beliefs and assumptions that adequately accounts for the role that ethics plays in our indi- vidual lives? And what would be the broader implications of accepting his or her skeptical claims about ethics?

With these thoughts in mind, we will examine skepticism about moral objectivity.

2.2 The Relativist Challenge American restaurant goers know that when a waiter or waitress provides good service, he or she deserves a decent tip; withholding a tip when good service has been provided is usually regarded as disrespectful. In Japan, however, the opposite is the case: Providing a tip is often a sign of disrespect. Similarly, consider that most Westerners believe that the way to show

Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

respect to the deceased is to cremate or bury their bodies, while leaving a body out in the open is the epitome of disrespect. However, in Himalayan cultures—partly because there is not much wood for burning and the hard ground makes it difficult to dig graves—it is custom- ary to leave the bodies of the dead out in the open to be consumed by animals and the ele- ments, which is regarded as dignifying.

Countless other examples can be raised about behaviors that one culture regards as ethical but another regards as unethical, and vice versa. Over the past century or two, as contact with other cultures has become increasingly common, many people have come to doubt whether their way of behav- ing and judging is the only “right” way.

Even within contemporary Western culture, there has been increased emphasis placed on individual self-determination of the values and principles that guide one’s life, which leads to doubts about whether any single set of values and principles should be authoritative for all. Indeed, bitter and sometimes violent conflicts often arise when one per- son or group is perceived as imposing its moral views on others. Instead, people commonly preface their expressions of moral commitment with phrases like “in my opinion” or “in my personal view”—the implication being that they have no right to suppose that others should agree.

These factors have contributed to a sense that moral judgments are not true or false in any objective sense but are instead relative to a culture or individual. Moral objectivity is the view that at least some moral truths are independent of the beliefs and values of any particu- lar culture or individual. By contrast, relativism rejects moral objectivity. Instead, relativism holds that the truth of moral standards depends entirely on the beliefs and values that a cul- ture or individual subject happens to hold. This means that if a culture or individual believes or values certain ideas, the associated moral judgments are relatively true (i.e., true for them); if they lack those beliefs and values, any conflicting moral judgments are relatively false (i.e., false for them).

Before examining this more closely, it is important to note that most people who think care- fully about what relativism means ultimately conclude that it has limits and cannot be entirely correct. Most people hold many deep beliefs that conflict with the relativist position, and there are significant ways in which the position itself may be incoherent. Moreover, relativism is not a normative ethical theory like utilitarianism or deontology; that is, one cannot invoke relativism as a reason to affirm or deny a particular moral judgment, as if it were an alterna- tive to, say, the principle of utility or the Categorical Imperative. For instance, one cannot say something like “According to utilitarianism, stealing this item would be wrong, but according to relativism it would not be wrong.” Before going into detail, we will look more closely at the general claims of relativism itself.

Jupiterimages/Stockbyte/Thinkstock Different attitudes toward giving and receiving gifts represent one example of how cultures can have different ethical standards.

Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

Two Types of Relativism Thinking back to the examples above, when an American claims that not tipping a waitress, leaving a dead body to rot in the open, or stoning a woman to death are wrong, one might suppose it is only wrong according to modern American culture; according to another culture, these behaviors may in fact be right. Such a view would be considered cultural relativism, since it acknowledges that within a particular culture, given a set of characteristic beliefs, val- ues, and customs, certain behaviors might be right or wrong; it denies, however, that the same judgment can be applied to similar behaviors in another culture with a different set of charac- teristic beliefs, values, and customs. In other words, it denies that there are any judgments of right and wrong that extend across all cultures regardless of whether their beliefs, values, and customs support those judgments. One might also subscribe to subjectivism, which is the view that matters of right and wrong are ultimately relative to the values that each individual subject recognizes and affirms.

In either form, relativism can have great appeal. It can be taken as a sign of respect for other cultures or individuals by refusing to deny or denounce what they find important and mean- ingful or by refraining from imposing oneself on others. It can help us avoid the conflicts that can result from disagreeing over ethical matters. It can be an expression of honesty and humility, in that it helps us presume to know more than we really do about ethical questions. Finally, it can be a way to acknowledge that much of what we believe and how we think people should act has been shaped by our own culture and upbringing.

Challenges to Relativism One can appreciate the appeal of relativism without being a relativist about everything of ethical significance; as we mentioned above, most people are relativists about some ethical matters but not all of them. The limits of both cultural relativism and subjectivism become clear when one considers personal experiences, the implications that relativism has, the con- sistency and coherence of the relativist position, and the interconnectedness of cultures and personal lives.

Personal Experience To understand the problems with the relativist position, think about your own experiences for a moment. Each one of us has a story to tell about how we came to be where we are, which includes elements such as community, society, religion, family, friends, and many other factors that influenced and shaped who we are and what we believe. Each of these elements is quite diverse in and of itself, incorporating many different beliefs and forms of life (think of the diversity within American society, for instance). To come out of a culture is thus to have been exposed to a range of different and often conflicting perspectives out of which we have to form our own identity, values, and moral beliefs. Moreover, none of us has all of the same beliefs and values that our parents did or that we ourselves had when we were younger, and these beliefs and values continue to change throughout our lives in profound or subtle ways.

Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

At least some of the ways we arrived at the beliefs and values we have is the result of reflec- tion and experiences that lead us to affirm, reject, or modify aspects of our own prior per- spectives, the perspectives with which we were raised, and those of our surrounding culture. That is, our own development was not wholly determined for us by some outside factor like family or culture, nor was it arbitrary or accidental. Rather, we had some reason indepen- dent of our culture to accept or reject certain elements of it. Likewise, we had some reason independent of how we were raised to accept or reject certain elements of our upbringing, and some reason independent of our subjective perspective would have led us to change that perspective. In short, our own experiences point to reasons for or against moral convictions that are independent of culture, upbringing, and personal values and thus not merely relative to those factors.

We can strengthen this observation, though, by looking more closely at what holding a relativ- ist position would involve and whether it would have implications that conflict with much of what we otherwise believe about morality.

Implications of Relativism First, what are the implications of relativism? When we become aware that different cultures have different views on whether it is respectful to tip a restaurant server, we may come to think that there is no objective truth about tipping that applies to all cultures. Let’s assume this is correct. We might then be tempted to think that all matters of respect or disrespect—or any other matter of ethical importance—are relative to one’s culture. But do we really think this? What would such a view imply about other matters of moral significance?

For example, consider an issue such as whether certain kinds of people should be enslaved or exterminated. During the 1930s and 1940s, German Nazis engaged in the mass extermination of those they regarded as unworthy and unfit, such as Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and peo- ple with certain disabilities—we call this event the Holocaust. Relative to the beliefs, values, and customs characteristic of German Nazis, Jews and others deserve no respect, and thus it may have been true (for that culture) that the atrocities of the Holocaust were not wrong but necessary, even noble. Similarly, relative to the beliefs, values, and customs characteristic of southern White culture in America prior to the freeing of the slaves in the 19th century, it was true (for that culture) that people with dark skin did not deserve the basic freedoms owed to Whites and thus that slavery was not wrong; in fact, many in that culture regarded slavery as good and right.

If we accept the cultural relativist position, two important implications follow. First, cultural relativism implies that we would have to abandon the judgments most of us make about the absolute rightness or wrongness of certain kinds of actions. For example, since exter- minating Jewish people, enslaving Blacks, or persecuting and killing those of different faiths are morally justified relative to the beliefs, values, and customs of cultures that engage in those actions, we cannot legitimately say that they are wrong, even if our culture disapproves of them. Likewise, our own rejection of such things cannot legitimately be called right, since this judgment is merely relative to our culture. However, hardly anyone accepts this: Most people maintain that regardless of the beliefs, values, and customs of the cultures that engage or engaged in such actions, their behavior is or was despicable and wrong, period. In that case one is not a relativist about such matters.

Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

The second implication of cultural relativism is that we must reject any notions of cultural progress and decline. In addition to no longer permitting slavery, American society no longer allows the segregation of Blacks and Whites in schools, restaurants, buses, and many other contexts, as it did long after the end of slavery. American society also once refused women the right to vote and allowed children to work long hours in mines and factories, but none of these practices are legal or generally accepted nowadays. Recently, homosexuals have been given the right to marry and serve openly in the military, more women are being given equal pay for equal work, and increased efforts are being made to ensure that children and those with disabilities are protected. There may be controversy regarding whether certain specific cultural changes represent progress or decline, but in either case, in the words of the philoso- pher James Rachels (2003), “that is just the sort of transcultural judgment that, according to cultural relativism, is impossible” (p. 22). In other words, if one were to judge that American

The Bacha Bāzī

Recent military activity by American and other Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has embroiled them in some challenging cultural conflicts. One of the most challenging and contentious conflicts concerns the practice in Afghanistan of bacha bāzī, which those in the West would call pederasty or pedophilia. In short, bacha bāzī involves powerful warlords and other prominent men taking prepubescent and adolescent boys as their sexual slaves. This practice seems to have been present in some Asian cultures for centuries, and though it was officially outlawed by the Taliban, the ouster of that regime by Western forces in 2002 removed the penalties for participating in this practice. Thus, it became more commonplace among the Afghan warlords and police commanders that the U.S. and allied forces depended on to secure the nation (Londoño, 2012).

Is the practice of using vulnerable boys as sexual slaves merely wrong relative to our own culture, or is it wrong no matter the cultural traditions, beliefs, or practices?

One way to frame this question is to ask whether a child has a set of basic human rights that would be violated by this practice. This is certainly the view taken by the United Nations and the 196 countries that have signed its Convention on the Rights of the Child, among which is a provision that protects children from sexual abuse (UN News Center, 2015; United Nations, 1989). These provisions are based on the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” (United Nations, 1989, para. 1), which is to say that it recognizes that all people have certain rights above and beyond particular cultural beliefs and practices, among which is the right of a child not to be sexually abused.

Now, denying the relativist position and acknowledging such rights does not settle all of the ethical issues, for there is still the question of how one should respond when confronted with practices like bacha bāzī. The U.S. military’s policy has been to look the other way so as to maintain good relationships with the Afghan leaders who perpetrate this abuse (Goldstein, 2015). However, there have been several cases of soldiers disobeying such orders and attempting to prevent the abuse (Goldstein, 2015). Whether they were right to do so is a question we cannot address here, but surely we can presume that they would not have done so unless they regarded the actions of the abusers as a violation of objective standards—that no one should abuse children regardless of whether such abuse is accepted by a culture.

Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

culture has progressed by outlawing slavery and segregation and by granting women the right to vote, one must deny cultural relativism. Likewise, if one were to judge that American cul- ture has declined in certain ways, one must deny cultural relativism. Why?

The reason is that any notion of a culture’s progress or decline must refer to standards that are independent of the culture as it happens to be. If increased racial or gender equality is to count as progress, it is because we think that racial or gender equality is good, and so a cul- ture that has more equality is better than one that has less. Or if we think that a culture has declined in certain ways, it would be because we regard certain norms as good and judge that the culture has veered from those norms. Either way, we are judging a culture by standards that are independent of the beliefs, values, and customs they happen to have. This is contrary to the relativistic view that there are no such independent standards. If we accept relativism, then we have no basis on which to hold that cultural changes like the elimination of slavery or granting women the right to vote is progress or that any changes could represent decline.

Similar problems arise for subjectivism. While we can appreciate that individuals within a culture have a wide variety of lifestyles and conceptions of what is good and worthwhile and that a “one-size-fits-all” perspective is often unjustified, most people recognize limits to this relativistic attitude. For instance, Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, may have acted consistently with his beliefs, as do others who per- petrate terrible atrocities. But few of us would be content to suppose that the wrongness of such actions is merely relative to our own personal values. Moreover, as we previously dis- cussed, many of us have changed our moral views and behavior as we have matured, and we experience this change as one of personal growth or progress. Just as the notion of cultural progress is difficult to square with a belief in cultural relativism, the experience of personal growth in one’s moral convictions and choices is inconsistent with the view that moral truth is only relative to the beliefs and values that an individual happens to have. The best we can say is that we had certain beliefs and made certain choices at one point in our lives and sim- ply changed at a later point. Again, however, most of us experience that kind of change not as arbitrary, but as one of genuine development. All of this implies that one is not a relativist about moral matters.

In short, the implications of relativism are that we can no longer sustain judgments that things such as slavery, genocide, terrorist attacks, rape, child molestation, and others are truly wrong; nor can we do adequate justice to the notion of cultural progress and the experience of personal moral development. Thus, we find that while most people are relativists about some matters of cultural or personal difference, very few people are relativists about all such matters.

Consistency and Coherence of Relativism The second set of challenges to relativism has to do with the consistency and coherence of the relativist position. Think back to the appealing aspects of relativism: It may seem to show respect for other persons or cultures, can help us avoid conflicts, and can be an expression of honesty and humility. Notice that each appealing aspect refers to some value that the rela- tivist position seems to affirm or embody: respect, peace, honesty, humility, and so on. All of these are adduced as good reasons to adopt a relativist position.

Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

However, respect for other cultures or for individual choices has a particular value that many of us affirm but some others may not. Peace is also something that many, but not all, value. Honesty and humility are generally regarded as virtues, but not everyone agrees. If the value of respect, peace, honesty, and humility are to count as reasons in favor of relativism, this value must be independent of whether others recognize it; in other words, they must have objective value. But if this is the case, then relativism must be false. Thus, what we thought were reasons in favor of relativism turn out, upon examination, to be reasons to reject it.

To see how defenses of relativism undermine relativism by appealing to nonrelative values and principles, think about the consistency and coherence of a few common expressions one might hear in support of relativism:

• “We should not pass judgment on other cultures.” In other words, passing judgment on other cultures is wrong. What should we say about a culture that passes judgments on other cultures? Are we not saying that what they do is wrong? By saying that what they do is wrong, are we not still passing judgment?

• “Who am I to say that what someone else does is wrong?” This saying means that no one has a right to say that what someone else does is wrong. But what if someone does say that what someone else does is wrong? Doesn’t that mean that they have done something wrong?

• The Bible says, “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1). The Bible seems to indicate that we should not pass judgment on another. But the Bible also contains a great many ethical teachings that seem to be presented as objec- tively true. Many of those teachings challenged the prevailing culture and its leaders to whom Jesus was speaking in this verse. Does this suggest that this verse should be understood as a warning against the objective wrong of hypocrisy rather than as a support of relativism?

One can see the inconsistency that arises when phrases like these are used to express or sup- port a relativist view. There may be contexts in which the sentiment they express is appro- priate, but the bottom line is that these expressions endorse values or principles that other cultures or persons may not share or ones that apply in some contexts but not all. In doing so, they do not support a position of moral relativism but rather one of nonrelativism.

Respect for Others Not only does the relativist’s endorsement of respect, honesty, and humility imply these ideas’ objective value, but their value may even be undermined if we were to adopt a consistently relativist position. Take respect, for example. As we noted before, a relativist position is often taken to express respect for other persons or cultures by refusing to pass negative judgment on their beliefs and practices. However, what does respect really mean? Generally, it means that we recognize some kind of value or merit in whatever we respect. We are making a judg- ment that a person or culture is worthy of respect.

Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

Moreover, as the philosopher Mary Midgley (1981) notes, “To respect someone [or some cul- ture], we have to know enough about [the person or culture] to make a favourable judgment” (p. 69). In other words, to show respect requires a certain level of understanding of a person’s or a culture’s beliefs and practices that allows us to recognize their potential value and merit. However, the level of understanding that would justify respect and praise has to allow for the possibility of negative judgments as well. “It is hardly possible that we could praise them effectively,” Midgley observes, “if we could not, in principle, criticize them” (p. 71). What does she mean by this?

The popular radio show A Prairie Home Companion includes a regular segment about the fic- tional town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where “all the children are above average.” The joke behind this description of the community is that it is impossible: No child can be above aver- age except in comparison to other children who are average and still others who are below average. In other words, describing a child as above average requires us to have a standard for “average” according to which a child can be judged to be at, above, or below. By declaring that all children are above average, one is essentially saying that no child is above average, since all are at the same level. Thus, the praise and esteem implied by the term above average is meaningless.

Just as being above average constitutes a positive judgment about a child, being worthy of respect is a positive judgment about a person’s or culture’s beliefs and practices. But for the positive judgment to be meaningful, there has to be the possibility of a negative judgment as well. Just like the positive judgment that a child is above average must entail that some chil- dren are average or below average, the positive judgment that cultural beliefs and practices are worthy of respect must entail that some cultural beliefs and practices are not worthy of respect. If we declare that all cultural beliefs and practices are worthy of respect, that is just as vacuous as declaring that all children in a community are above average.

To put it another way, if we refuse to judge other cultures at all, we “are not taking the other culture seriously” (Midgley, 1981, p. 73), a point that can be applied to judging other persons as well. It is a powerful idea: Would a positive judgment like “worthy of respect” be meaning- ful or significant if there wasn’t the possibility of negative judgments, that some things are not worthy of respect?

Consider this same idea as it pertains to a value like honesty. Imagine you were seeking a friend’s honest opinion on your new outfit. Would you trust her thoughts if you knew that she would never say anything negative? If you suspected that she would say you look good no matter what, would you turn to her if you really wanted to know if the outfit looked good? Probably not. Genuine honesty, like genuine respect, depends on the possibility of a negative judgment; otherwise, any positive remark would be empty and meaningless.

In short, by insisting that all value judgments are merely relative, a stance of relativism entails that we cannot make positive judgments about another culture or individual, including the judgment that they are worthy of respect. Thus, relativism does not, in fact, show respect for others, as some defenders maintain.

Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

Intellectual Humility Perhaps the most common and familiar way to defend relativist attitudes is by using phrases like “Who am I to say what’s right or wrong for someone else?” Such phrases seem to call us to intellectual humility: How can we pass judgment on others when we know so little of their circumstances or when we cannot be sure our judgments are well grounded? This is important, but we can only account for its importance if we reject relativism and accept there are certain standards by which we can, at least in principle, judge others and ourselves. Why is this?

As we saw in Chapter 1, acting on the basis of reasons—which is fundamental to human life— depends on the capacity to judge that certain choices are better than others. It is easy to see that in many everyday situations, such as deciding on the best car to buy or how to treat an illness, our own knowledge is limited; we may not have better judgment than someone else, and we can probably learn a lot from others if we open ourselves up to their judgment and perspective. Because of these limitations, humility and a willingness to learn from others seems to be in order.

But this only makes sense if there are, in fact, better or worse judgments on such matters. Why suppose that we may be limited in our knowledge of how to treat an illness or buy a car if there were no such thing as better and worse judgments about them? If humility and being open to learning from others is important, we must suppose that there are some judgments that are good and others that are not.

In most everyday situations, this is not hard to see: If a doctor recommends a certain treat- ment for an illness, it would be absurd to suppose that the effectiveness of this treatment is relative to one’s beliefs and values. Likewise, if humility and an openness to learning from others are important regarding ethical matters, then we would have to presuppose that there are some ethical judgments that are good and others that are not. To put it another way, if we think we might have something to learn from another people or cultures, we have to suppose that their ethical judgment might be better than ours, but this logically entails that their ethi- cal judgment might also be worse than ours in certain respects. Both of these possibilities, however, imply that relativism is false, and phrases like “Who am I to judge?” actually deny relativism rather than support it.

At this point you might be thinking, “Relativ- ists don’t have to suppose that there aren’t better and worse ethical judgments at all. They simply maintain that what’s ‘ethically better or worse’ for one person, culture, or society might not be the same for another.” As a factual matter, this is true—individu- als and cultures have many different ethi- cal beliefs. But remember that relativists do not simply point out that different people or

Thinking About Relativism

Relativism is more than the acknowledg- ment of differences in beliefs; it is the claim that we have no way of comparing the merits of different ethical beliefs and values.

Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

cultures happen to have different ethical beliefs and values; they maintain that we have no way of comparing the merits of these different beliefs and values. What critics of relativism argue, however, is that the sense many people have—that we should not be quick to judge and that we should exercise humility in the face of such differences—is based on the assumption that there are nonrelative truths on ethical matters about which we may have only limited understanding. But this seems to call for an honest and open consideration of the different beliefs and values rather than simply refusing to pass any form of judgment whatsoever.

Cultural and Interpersonal Differences There is one final challenge to relativism, which is perhaps the most powerful of all. Cultural relativism seems to rest on the idea that cultures are completely isolated from each other, such that one culture would be so disconnected from another that they could not understand each other enough to judge each other’s beliefs or practices. Subjectivism would seem to pre- suppose something similar about our inability to understand, and thus judge, the values and beliefs of another person. But is it plausible to suppose that we are disconnected from each other to such a radical degree?

To suppose so would be to suppose that the beliefs and values of different cultures or indi- viduals developed and were shaped in isolation, but this is clearly not the case. With very few exceptions (such as isolated tribes in the Amazon rain forest), all cultures, along with their beliefs and values, have been shaped and formed by their encounters with others; as Midgley (1981) puts it, “all cultures are formed out of many streams” (p. 74).

Early human societies had to overcome similar obstacles and challenges in the face of a hos- tile natural world, despite differences in conditions such as climate and resources. Migra- tions, wars, and trade brought different cultures into contact, and they had to find ways to relate to each other. Modern societies are even more interconnected than previous societies due to technological advances. The notion of a culture that is radically disconnected from oth- ers is difficult to imagine, and the idea that an individual can be so disconnected as to rule out judgment on others’ values and beliefs is even more implausible. Thus, there is good reason to suppose that we may find common, rationally justified grounds for many moral values and principles, and that a relativist stance is not justified on the grounds of cultural or interper- sonal differences.

Limited Relativism We have presented relativism as a form of skepticism about whether values, principles, and norms are objectively true—that is, true for all cultures and individuals. Relativism maintains instead that their truth is only in relation to a particular culture or individual, such that what- ever is true for one culture or individual is not necessarily true for another. It is important to note that we have been considering a somewhat extreme form of relativism that maintains that one culture or individual cannot pass judgment on the moral standards of another. Reject- ing this form of relativism does not necessarily mean that all moral standards are objectively true; there may be good reasons to suppose that at least some moral standards are relative. Distinguishing between those that are merely relative, objective, or somewhere in between

Section 2.3 The Egoist Challenge

requires critical thought, open-mindedness, and a willingness to engage in dialogue with the other. By the same token, immediately declaring a different moral view as simply wrong on the one hand, or merely different (i.e., neither right nor wrong) on the other would be too hasty in most cases and would fail to demonstrate respect and intellectual humility or acknowledge the interrelated- ness of cultures and individuals.

Moreover, rejecting relativism and accept- ing that there may be objective moral truths does not mean we would necessarily expect all people to accept or acknowledge those truths. Similarly, we may have good reason to pass judgment on other cultures’ or indi- viduals’ beliefs and practices, but that should be distinguished from a judgment about the specific culture or individual. That is, I may believe that a certain cultural practice is wrong (perhaps because it demeans women, for example), but that does not necessarily entitle me to declare that members of that culture or the culture as a whole are bad.

Having concluded this discussion of the relativist’s challenge to morality, we now turn to skepticism about the other assumption we identified—skepticism about the unconditionality of moral standards.

2.3 The Egoist Challenge We all know the feeling: you really want to do something, but you know that it goes against the moral rules. Sometimes, though, you’re pretty sure you could do it and not get caught. What holds you back?

We have been taught to regard certain kinds of behavior as good and other kinds as bad, and often these rules stand in contrast to what we feel inclined to do. These claims about good and bad might come from our parents or teachers, religious authorities, media personalities, and many others trying to tell us how we ought to live. Are these claims unconditional in the sense of describing standards for how one ought to live regardless of whether they directly benefit us as individuals? Or are their rationality and force conditional on this benefit?

One reason for supposing that such behaviors are merely conditional is to regard them as nothing more than social conventions or sets of rules that society imposes on its members whose primary purpose is to constrain them from doing what they would otherwise want to do. Why might we have such conventions? Lots of possibilities spring to mind. Such conven- tions help maintain social order, for instance. If there was no prohibition on stealing, we could not be secure in holding on to the things we need to live our lives. Prohibitions on murder

Going Deeper: Are Ethical Standards Merely Expressions of Attitude?

In addition to relativism and egoism, some philosophers have questioned the assumption that there are such things as moral properties or moral facts at all. Instead, they maintain that moral statements are expressions of feeling or attitude that are neither true nor false. One such theory is called “emotivism,” which you can read more about in Are Ethical Standards Merely Expressions of Attitude? in the Going Deeper section at the end of the chapter.

Section 2.3 The Egoist Challenge

ensure that our lives are relatively safe, while prohibitions on lying ensure that we can trust other people, which is vital to most social interactions. These conventions also protect weaker members from being taken advantage of by stronger ones, and moral values such as generos- ity and beneficence compel those who have more to share with those who have less. We can also imagine how certain groups of people might use such conventions to exercise power over others, in terms of keeping them in line and making them easier to control.

Whatever explanation we might have for why we have these conventions, one thing to notice is that they are all consistent with the assumption that each individual is and/or ought to be primarily concerned with his or her own interests and benefit. We call this kind of view egoism. If egoism were true, we could understand moral standards as social conventions designed to ensure a certain level of cooperation and to keep us from seeking our own advan- tage at the expense of others. However, if morality is nothing more, and each of us is com- pletely self-interested, why should we respect those conventions?

Most social conventions—especially those codified as formal rules or laws—come with sanc- tions or punishments for breaking them. Therefore, one obvious reason to respect them is that we do not want to be punished. But what if you could avoid punishment? What if you had the ability to transgress these moral conventions and not get caught? Would there be any rea- son to be moral? Therefore, the questions at the heart of the egoist challenge are, do we only have reason to be moral if doing so benefits us, and would we be better off acting immorally if doing so had greater self-benefit?

Glaukon’s Challenge This is not a new question; in fact, humans have been wrestling with the question of “Why be moral?” for ages. Twenty-five hundred years ago, the great philosopher Plato raised this issue in his most famous text, the Republic. Plato explored philosophical ideas mostly through fictional dialogues, many of which featured Plato’s real-life teacher Socrates as a main char- acter. Prior to the passage we will examine, Socrates had proposed that the person who lives a just life (similar to what we would call a moral life) is better off than the person who lives unjustly (or, roughly, immorally). Acting justly isn’t good simply because it happens to fulfill one’s interests or because it helps maintain social order, Socrates claimed. Rather, he main- tained that the life of justice is good in itself. In other words, those who act justly live the truly best kind of life, and so justice is worth choosing even when it might seem that acting unjustly would be advantageous. This is a familiar idea to us: We often hear about the value of integ- rity, or doing the right thing even when no one is looking. However, it is this very idea that is called into question in Glaukon’s challenge.

In the passage, Socrates’s friend (and Plato’s own real-life brother) Glaukon is challenging him on the concept of integrity. He does so by offering a story designed to question Socrates’s claim that justice is truly best. It is important to note that Glaukon is most likely playing dev- il’s advocate; there is no reason to suppose that Glaukon actually disagreed with Socrates. In offering his story, Glaukon can be considered part of a dialectical movement. He is suggesting a concrete case (though fictional and far-fetched) that forces Socrates to clarify his account

Section 2.3 The Egoist Challenge

of why justice is truly good and injustice is truly bad, despite the fact that we are often inclined toward injustice.

As you read the text, try to identify Glau- kon’s primary claims and how the story he tells helps him argue for those claims. Read “The Ring of Gyges” in the Primary Source section of the chapter, then return to this point in the book.

In Glaukon’s speech, he puts forth three pri- mary claims:

1. No one is willingly just. 2. Justice is a social convention that benefits the weak. 3. The best sort of life is that of the unjust person who seems just.

How does Glaukon argue for these claims?

Claim 1: No One Is Willingly Just Imagine a situation in which you can do anything you choose and not incur punishment or social condemnation. This is the scenario Glaukon invokes when he tells the story of the Ring of Gyges. In this story, a poor shepherd finds a ring that can make him invisible by turning it a certain direction. With this newfound tool, the shepherd realizes that he can get away with many things that would be considered unjust, now that he no longer risks being caught and punished. If Socrates is right, finding the ring should make no difference as to whether the shepherd respects principles of justice. Since justice is good in itself, Socrates claims, the possibility that one can get away with injustice is irrelevant. In Glaukon’s story, of course, the shepherd decidedly does not see things the same way and instead engages in murder, seduc- tion, and other illicit activities.

Dialectical Reasoning

Recall that dialectical reasoning involves moving back and forth between abstract principles and concrete cases in such a way that the concrete cases challenge us to revise and refine the abstract principles, leading us to form more refined judgments about the concrete cases.

Ethics FYI

Symbolism in the Ring Notice that when the ring is facing outward toward others, the wearer is visible to others and thus must be concerned with how society views him. By turning the ring inward toward himself, he becomes invisible to society, and thus his true inner condition becomes manifest. It is this inner condition with which both Socrates and Glaukon are ultimately concerned. (Author’s note: This interpretation is indebted to one of my students, David Plunkett.)

Section 2.3 The Egoist Challenge

Glaukon suggests that when the shepherd respected and abided by principles of justice before he found the ring, he never did so willingly. He knew that if he engaged in murder, seduction, and the like, he would likely be caught and punished and would lose his reputation. The risks outweighed any benefits of unjust behavior, and so the shepherd acquiesced to the system of justice in place. We know that he did so unwillingly by the simple fact that once he acquired the means to avoid such negative repercussions, the standards of justice went out the window.

Glaukon thinks that if we are honest, we will agree that even if a person we would normally regard as just or moral were to acquire the means to act unjustly without consequence, his

Ancient and Modern Fantasy Stories

The Ring of Gyges story contains themes that may be familiar to some readers from literature and film.

Those who are familiar with The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien will no doubt recognize the similarity of that story and Plato’s (indeed, the idea of a magic ring of invisibility is present in the myths of many cultures). In each myth, there is a ring that grants its wearer the power of invisibility, but it also corrupts its wearer in some sense. Glaukon would say that the only corruption is in terms of the standards of society, but that in reality the person who uses the ring to his advantage is living better than before. Tolkien’s account presents a different picture, one of not just external but internal corruption.

A similar scenario is presented in the 1993 film Groundhog Day. In the movie, Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) wakes up to the same day over and over. No matter what he does, the day is reset and there are no negative consequences—to himself or anyone else—from his actions.

When Phil realizes this, he is elated. “It’s the same thing your whole life,” he says. “Clean up your room. Stand up straight. Pick up your feet. Take it like a man. Be nice to your sister. Don’t mix beer and wine, ever. And, oh yeah, don’t drive on the railroad tracks” (Albert, Erikson, White, & Ramis, 1993), after which he proceeds straight onto a railroad track. He spends the next part of the movie doing things that he would never be able to do because of society’s rules. Here is a man who, like Glaukon’s shepherd, felt like he had to obey those rules to remain respectable and avoid condemnation, while deep down he wished that he could blow them off and have fun. Once the negative consequences are no longer a factor, he sees no point to the rules anymore, and he can just let loose: “I’m not gonna play by their rules anymore!” (Albert et al., 1993). As one of Phil’s drunk companions put it when asked what he would do in such a situation, “I’d just spend all my time drivin’ fast, gettin’ loaded and gettin’ laid” (Rubin & Ramis, 1992, p. 45).

However, Groundhog Day takes a significantly different turn than Glaukon’s story. After indulging himself for a while, Phil finds himself in a state of such depression and misery that he attempts to kill himself over and over, only emerging from that state once he no longer concerns himself merely with satisfying his own interests and desires. Instead, he pursues artistic excellence, helps others in need, and finds himself caring for others for their own sake, not simply for what he can get out of it.

Can The Lord of the Rings and Groundhog Day provide a clue as to how one might respond to Glaukon’s challenge?

Section 2.3 The Egoist Challenge

or her actions would be no different from those of an unjust person; both the just and the unjust would follow the same path. If this is true, it shows that no one is just willingly, but only because they are compelled to be. Glaukon seems to be saying that we are interested only in ourselves—satisfying our own wants and desires and securing our own advantages—which brings us back to egoism. According to the egoist view, everyone is ultimately self-centered, which implies that no one is truly just, there are no truly selfless actions, and we only have reason to respect justice and morality or care about the needs of others when doing so ben- efits us.

Is Glaukon right? Are even the most ethical of people only acting that way to build a good reputation, avoid condemnation and punishment, and so forth? Naturally, there are people (perhaps you are one of them) who would insist that they would continue acting ethically even if they could act otherwise and get away with it. What would someone defending Glau- kon’s claim say about such persons? Perhaps they are deluding themselves because they are so used to the idea that acting unethically would be too risky. Perhaps they would feel a strong sense of internal guilt at pursuing their own advantages at the expense of others.

Notice, however, that the feeling of guilt is itself a form of punishment, albeit one that is imposed on ourselves rather than by an outside force. If ethical standards are simply con- straints on what we really want to do, as Glaukon’s account maintains, then a powerful way to ensure that people abide by them would be to condition them in such a way that they would punish themselves for breaking those standards. Feelings of guilt would be one such form of punishment. However, the presence of these feelings does not necessarily mean that the behaviors one would feel guilty about are wrong. It may only mean that one has been condi- tioned by society to feel bad about certain behaviors.

Huck Finn and the Guilty Conscience

In Mark Twain’s classic novel Huckleberry Finn, set in the days of slavery, the title character befriends a runaway slave named Jim. Even though Huck recognizes Jim’s humanity and regards him as a friend, he is plagued by feelings of guilt over the fact that he isn’t fulfilling his supposed duty to turn in a runaway slave. At one point, he contemplates turning in his friend but ultimately decides against it.

Thinking that the decision to not turn in Jim was wrong, morally speaking, Huck says:

I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don’t get STARTED right when he’s little ain’t got no show—when the pinch comes there ain’t nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s’pose you’d a done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad—I’d feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right, when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? (Twain, 1885/2001, pp. 87–88)

(continued on next page)

Section 2.3 The Egoist Challenge

Huck Finn and the Guilty Conscience (continued)

Huck feels a sense of guilt at not turning in a runaway slave. Yet he recognizes that he would have felt guilty if he had turned Jim in as well, since Jim is his friend. Thus torn, he decides that if he’s going to feel guilty either way, he might as well do what he wants to do, rather than what he’s “supposed” to do, given the standards of his society. After all, he figures, he’s a bad kid anyway, so there’s no point to trying to do what’s “right.”

Later, still wrestling with this decision, Huck composes a letter to Jim’s owner telling her where her runaway slave is. Just before sending it, he reflects:

I took it up, and held it [the letter betraying Jim] in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. (Twain, 1885/2001, p. 192)

Huck was brought up in a society that held to the view that Black people could be the property of Whites, and if a White person’s property escaped, it was the moral responsibility of other Whites to return that property to its rightful owner. He regarded his reluctance to do so as a sign of moral depravity and experienced feelings of guilt at that failure. These days, we would not consider Huck’s reluctance to betray Jim to be a failure at all. However, it goes to show that feelings of guilt do not, by themselves, indicate that one’s actions are truly wrong.

In similar fashion, someone defending Glaukon’s claims might acknowledge that people may feel guilt at the thought of acting immorally even when they would not be punished or condemned. However, these feelings would be considered a sign that someone has been conditioned to regard such actions as wrong. In reality, says someone defending Glaukon’s claims, the person would be better off overcoming such feelings and pursuing the personal advantages that come with possessing the ring.

If egoism is right, moral standards constrain the basic motivation we all have to pursue our individual interests above all else. This implies that we would rather avoid such constraints if we could, and thus we are not willingly just; rather, we are just only because we fear punish- ment, whether internal or external. If this is the case, why are moral standards such a power- ful force in society?

We considered a few possibilities earlier: These constraints help maintain social order, ensure safety and security, and protect weaker members of society. Notice, however, that these are good reasons for us to want others to respect these constraints; they aren’t necessarily rea- sons why we as individuals should respect them. What if we could get away with injustice while everyone else respected the constraints that maintained social order? If we would ulti- mately prefer that situation, that indicates that we don’t willingly do what is just, but rather we do it because we cannot get away with acting otherwise.

In the real world, of course, rings of invisibility do not exist; but we can think of it as repre- senting the real power some people may have to act unjustly without the risk of punishment.

Section 2.3 The Egoist Challenge

All real societies have stronger and weaker members. The stronger members have the means to obtain more of what they want; they can find ways to secure what they desire through force, persuasion, or money. They also have the means to prevent others from trying to take advantage of them, and they have less need for the generosity of others. Weaker members of society, on the other hand, are those who lack such means. They are thus the ones who would benefit most when the rest of society complies with standards of ethics and justice. Hence, we arrive at Glaukon’s second claim.

Claim 2: Justice Is a Social Convention That Benefits the Weak If Glaukon’s egoistic view is correct, no one really wants to act morally. However, we recognize these standards because they seem to be good for soci- ety—it is good for us if people are not murdering others and stealing things. But who most benefits from this?

To see Glaukon’s answer, imagine two people: Big Jim and Tiny Tim. Big Jim is strong, well connected, wealthy, and charismatic. Tiny Tim is weak, a bit of a loner, poor, and socially awkward. Both Big Jim and Tiny Tim are self-centered and want as many per- sonal advantages as possible, regardless of how that might harm others. For obvious reasons, Big Jim is much better at getting what he wants than Tiny Tim. In fact, when Big Jim goes after something, it often ends up harming Tiny Tim in some way.

Is there anything people like Tiny Tim can do to prevent people like Big Jim from doing what- ever they feel like, gaining all the advantages for themselves, and stepping all over the Tiny Tims?

What if we established a system of rules that constrained people’s capacity to pursue what- ever they want for themselves?

People like Tiny Tim are already constrained by their own weakness, especially when com- peting against people like Big Jim. Such a system of rules would level the playing field a bit more, which benefits the Tiny Tims when it comes to their capacity to pursue what they want and avoid harm from the Big Jims. But it hinders the Big Jims, since they wouldn’t be able to use their superior means as freely as before.

This is what Glaukon seemed to have in mind when he claimed that justice is a convention that benefits the weak. The 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844– 1900) conveyed a similar idea by using the image of a bird of prey (like a hawk or eagle) and a lamb (Nietzsche, 1994). Birds of prey, by their very nature, love to feast on little lambs, and the lambs cannot do anything to prevent it. But imagine if the lambs and birds of prey were

Ryzhi/iStock/Thinkstock Glaukon claims that justice is a social convention that helps the disadvantaged compete with those with more wealth and strength.

Section 2.3 The Egoist Challenge

rational creatures. We might imagine a world in which lambs established a system of stan- dards whereby the predatory actions of the birds of prey were considered evil and wrong and lamb-like behavior was right and good. The lambs, which are naturally weaker and more vulnerable when it comes to physical capacities, would thereby gain an advantage over the birds of prey, which are physically stronger by nature.

This image is intended to suggest that the moral standards we take for granted as prescribing the way that everyone should live are really ways that weaker members of society are able to reign in the natural tendency of stronger members to assert their dominance. It is not the case that these moral standards are really the best ways to live, on Glaukon’s critique. Rather, they are the ways that weaker people would want everyone to live, given their inability to use their natural powers to gain their own advantage. Therefore, the implicit claim that we are all ultimately interested in our own advantages still stands.

If we buy the account so far, then a further claim follows.

Claim 3: The Best Sort of Life Is That of the Unjust Person Who Seems Just We have a system of rules that tells us we have to refrain from seeking our own advantages when doing so would harm others and that we need to look out for the needs of others, espe- cially weaker and more vulnerable people. Even if we do not willingly respect these stan- dards, we can probably all agree that it is good for society as a whole if we have these rules in place. So wouldn’t it be a great thing if everyone lived by these moral codes?

Everyone else, at least.

Think about it: If everyone else feels compelled to help others (like you, when you need it), avoid seeking their own advantages (more for you!), and avoid harming others (like you, when you’re vulnerable), then that’s great for you. If we recognize this, we can recognize that it is good for society as a whole when people abide by these moral rules.

But the fact that something is good for society doesn’t change the fact that sometimes, for the individual person, lying, stealing, and so on would be a good way to gain more of what is desirable (so long as society as a whole maintains these standards). As we discussed before, Glaukon is proposing that no one really wants to be just; we simply want whatever gives us advantages and satisfies our desires, which are often the types of things that morality con- strains. If we can somehow gain these personal advantages while enjoying all the benefits of appearing to be good, upstanding people (that is, those who appear to abide by the standards set for society as a whole), then that would be the best life of all. Of course, this view com- pletely undermines the idea that morality and justice are good in themselves; in fact, the view seems to imply that if we had the power to act unjustly but did not take advantage of it, we would be making a bad choice from the point of view of what is really best for us.

Section 2.3 The Egoist Challenge

Hypocrites and Liars Even though this dialogue is ancient and the story Glaukon uses is fanciful, it still resonates with us. There is no shortage of figures that present themselves in a certain way in public while behaving differently behind closed doors. We call them hypocrites and liars.

Politicians and business leaders constitute some of the most notorious examples, given that so much of their role involves presenting themselves as attractively as possible to the pub- lic but using any means necessary to further their own agenda. We also think of religious leaders who vocally condemn what they regard as immoral behavior while secretly abusing children, stealing from church funds, and engaging in other types of behavior they publicly condemn. Some athletes go to extraordinary lengths to convince us that their success is the result of hard work and talent, while engaging in elaborate cheating schemes that involve performance-enhancing drugs. Finally, we probably all have had friends and family members who have taken advantage of our trust and generosity for their own personal gain.

While such cases infuriate us, Glaukon’s challenge forces us to consider whether their mistake lies in what they do or in the fact that they let themselves get caught. In other words, is what they did wrong, or were they just not savvy enough to avoid detection? If you could get away with using backhanded means to gain power and influence, become incredibly wealthy, and so on, would you?

Responding to Glaukon’s Challenge If you are like most people, you might find something both compelling and disturbing in these ideas. You might find yourself thinking, “If I had the ring, I would do all sorts of things I can’t do now—rob a bank to get tons of money, spy on people, hop on airplanes and travel the world for free. . . .” But you may also feel the tug of your conscience, whispering that you should use this newfound ability not just for yourself, but to help others as well—your fam- ily, your friends and community, or the broader world. Still others might feel repulsed by the thought of using this ring to their own advantage, particularly at the expense of others.

These kinds of thoughts point to what we often call moral intuitions—the deep-down sense we have of something being good or right and another thing being bad or wrong.

As we noted previously (such as with the example of Huckleberry Finn), a person defending Glaukon’s idea could maintain that these kinds of intuitions have been conditioned in us by society, since it is good for society as a whole when each of its members has such intuitions. But if we regard them only as something conditioned in us, such a person would add, these intuitions have no necessary force or authority over what choices we make as individuals; they are just feelings or emotions that we should get over if we want to have the best life possible.

Section 2.3 The Egoist Challenge

Still, some of us have the persistent sense that there is something more to these intuitions than simply social conditioning. We sense there is something about human life itself that sup- ports them, something that calls into question egoism’s claim that we are ultimately just self- interested beings. Perhaps there is something about what it means to be human that can only be fulfilled by abiding by certain standards of conduct regardless of whether they confer merely egoistic benefits, and if we dismiss or reject them we are living a lesser kind of life, even if on the surface it seems pretty good.

For the rest of the text, we will consider some of the most prominent and influential attempts to make sense of these intuitions, to test them, provide justification for them, and often to challenge them. These are philosophers who, like Socrates, believed that living and acting ethically is good in itself (not simply because it can benefit you or help you avoid punishment) and tried to explain and defend that through philosophical argument.

Our task will be to understand and examine those arguments. Have they succeeded in respond- ing to Glaukon’s challenge? What might someone like Glaukon say in response? Whose argu- ments best make sense of what humans recognize as valuable? And, most importantly, how might a serious engagement with these ideas and arguments challenge and enhance our response to Socrates’s question of how one should live?

Going Deeper

Did something in this chapter catch your interest? Want to get a little more in depth with some of the theory, or learn about how it can be applied? Check out this feature at the end of the chapter.

Are Ethical Standards Merely Expressions of Attitude?

Conclusion & Summary

Key Terms cultural relativism A belief system that denies there are any judgments of right and wrong that extend across cultures with dif- ferent beliefs, values, and customs.

egoism The assumption that each indi- vidual is primarily concerned with his or her own benefit.

emotivism The theory that we use moral expressions such as wrong or right to express our attitudes and feelings about cer- tain actions, rather than to convey a belief about the way things really are.

error theory The claim that people are systematically in error about moral values being real.

moral intuitions The deep-down sense we have of some things being good or right and other things being bad or wrong.

objectivity The view that a belief can be justified independently of the beliefs and values of a culture or individual.

relativism A belief system that is depen- dent on the beliefs and values of a culture or individual.

skepticism Holding doubts that some belief or claim is true.

subjectivism The view that right and wrong are ultimately relative to the values of each individual.

Conclusion & Summary In this chapter, we identified two common assumptions about morality: Moral standards are objective, and moral standards are unconditional. We examined reasons to doubt or be skeptical about each. Relativism doubts whether moral standards are objective, propos- ing instead that their truth is merely relative to particular cultures (cultural relativism) or particular subjects (subjectivism). Egoism of the sort expressed by Glaukon’s challenge called into doubt the assumption that moral standards are unconditional by arguing that we only have reason to respect them when doing so benefits us in some way. Our examina- tion revealed weaknesses in each form of skepticism, but that alone does not show that the common assumptions are well supported. To show this, we would need a positive account of what ethics is and how best to answer Socrates’s question of how one should live. For- tunately, many great thinkers have offered such accounts, and the following chapters will closely examine three of the strongest and most influential ones: utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics.

Further Reading Benedict, R. (1934). The case for moral relativism from anthropology and the abnormal. Journal of General Psy-

chology, 10, 59–82.

Feinberg, J. (2002). Psychological egoism. In J. Feinberg & R. Shafer-Landau (Eds.), Reason and Responsibility (pp. 547–559). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Goodman, L. (2010). Some moral minima. Good Society Journal, 19(1), 87–94.

Harman, G. (1975). Moral relativism defended. Philosophical Review, 85, 3–22.

Moser, P., & Carson, T. (Eds.). (2000). Moral relativism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nussbaum, M. (1988). Non-relative virtues: An Aristotelian approach. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 13, 32–53.

Wong, D. (2006). Natural moralities: A defense of pluralistic relativism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Primary Source

Plato’s The Ring of Gyges 357 When I said this, I thought I had done with the discussion, but it turned out to have

been only a prelude. Glaucon showed his characteristic courage on this occasion too and refused to accept Thrasymachus’ abandonment of the argument. Socrates, he said, do you want to seem to have persuaded us that it is better in every way to be just than

b unjust, or do you want truly to convince us of this?

I want truly to convince you, I said, if I can.

Well, then, you certainly aren’t doing what you want. Tell me, do you think there is a kind of good we welcome, not because we desire what comes from it, but because we welcome it for its own sake—joy, for example, and all the harmless pleasures that have no results beyond the joy of having them?

Certainly, I think there are such things.

And is there a kind of good we like for its own sake and also for the sake of what comes

c from it—knowing, for example, and seeing and being healthy? We welcome such things, I suppose, on both counts.

Yes.

And do you also see a third kind of good, such as physical training, medical treatment when sick, medicine itself, and the other ways of making money? We’d say that these are onerous but beneficial to us, and we wouldn’t choose them for their own sakes, but for

d the sake of the rewards and other things that come from them.

There is also this third kind. But what of it?

Where do you put justice?

358 I myself put it among the finest goods, as something to be valued by anyone who is going to be blessed with happiness, both because of itself and because of what comes from it. That isn’t most people’s opinion. They’d say that justice belongs to the onerous kind, and is to be practiced for the sake of the rewards and popularity that come from a reputation for justice, but is to be avoided because of itself as something burdensome.

Primary Source

I know that’s the general opinion. Thrasymachus faulted justice on these grounds a moment ago and praised injustice, but it seems that I’m a slow learner.

b Come, then, and listen to me as well, and see whether you still have that problem, for I think that Thrasymachus gave up before he had to, charmed by you as if he were a snake. But I’m not yet satisfied by the argument on either side. I want to know what justice and injustice are and what power each itself has when it’s by itself in the soul. I want to leave out of account their rewards and what comes from each of them. So, if you agree, I’ll renew the argument of Thrasymachus.

c First, I’ll state what kind of thing people consider justice to be and what its origins are. Second, I’ll argue that all who practice it do so unwillingly, as something necessary, not as something good. Third, I’ll argue that they have good reason to act as they do, for the life of an unjust person is, they say, much better than that of a just one.

It isn’t, Socrates, that I believe any of that myself. I’m perplexed, indeed, and my ears are deafened listening to Thrasymachus and countless others. But I’ve yet to hear anyone

d defend justice in the way I want, proving that it is better than injustice. I want to hear it praised by itself, and I think that I’m most likely to hear this from you. Therefore, I’m going to speak at length in praise of the unjust life, and in doing so I’ll show you the way I want to hear you praising justice and denouncing injustice. But see whether you want me to do that or not.

I want that most of all. Indeed, what subject could someone with any understanding enjoy discussing more often?

e Excellent. Then let’s discuss the first subject I mentioned—what justice is and what its origins are. They say that to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer injustice bad, but that the badness of suffering it so far exceeds the goodness of doing it that those who have done and suffered injustice and tasted both, but who lack the power to do it and

359 avoid suffering it, decide that it is profitable to come to an agreement with each other neither to do injustice nor to suffer it. As a result, they begin to make laws and cove- nants, and what the law commands they call lawful and just. This, they say, is the origin and essence of justice. It is intermediate between the best and the worst. The best is to do injustice without paying the penalty; the worst is to suffer it without being able to take

b revenge. Justice is a mean between these two extremes. People value it not as a good but because they are too weak to do injustice with impunity. Someone who has the power to do this, however, and is a true man wouldn’t make an agreement with anyone not to do injustice in order not to suffer it. For him that would be madness. This is the nature of justice, according to the argument, Socrates, and these are its natural origins. We can see

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c most clearly that those who practice justice do it unwillingly and because they lack the power to do injustice, if in our thoughts we grant to a just and an unjust person the freedom to do whatever they like. We can then follow both of them and see where their desires would lead. And we’ll catch the just person red-handed travelling the same road as the unjust. The reason for this is the desire to outdo others and get more and more. This is what anyone’s nature naturally pursues as good, but nature is forced by law into the perversion of treating fairness with respect.

The freedom I mentioned would be most easily realized if both people had the power

d they say the ancestor of Gyges of Lydia possessed. The story goes that he was a shep- herd in the service of the ruler of Lydia. There was a violent thunderstorm, and an earthquake broke open the ground and created a chasm at the place where he was tending his sheep. Seeing this, he was filled with amazement and went down into it. And there, in addition to many other wonders of which we’re told, he saw a hollow bronze horse. There were windowlike openings in it, and, peeping in, he saw a corpse, which seemed to be of

e more than human size, wearing nothing but a gold ring on its finger. He took the ring and came out of the chasm. He wore the ring at the usual monthly meeting that reported to the king on the state of the flocks. And as he was sitting among the others, he hap- pened to turn the setting of the ring towards himself to the inside of his hand.

360 When he did this, he became invisible to those sitting near him, and they went on talk- ing as if he had gone. He wondered at this, and, fingering the ring, he turned the setting outwards again and became visible. So he experimented with the ring to test whether it indeed had this power—and it did. If he turned the setting inward, he became invis- ible; if he turned it outward, he became visible again. When he realized this, he at once arranged

b to become one of the messengers sent to report to the king. And when he arrived there, he seduced the king’s wife, attacked the king with her help, killed him, and took over the kingdom.

Let’s suppose, then, that there were two such rings, one worn by a just and the other by an unjust person. Now, no one, it seems, would be so incorruptible that he would stay on the path of justice or stay away from other people’s property, when he could take whatever he wanted from the marketplace with impunity, go into people’s houses and

c have sex with anyone he wished, kill or release from prison anyone he wished, and do all the other things that would make him like a god among humans. Rather his actions would be in no way different from those of an unjust person, and both would follow the same path. This, some would say, is a great proof that one is never just willingly but only when compelled to be. No one believes justice to be a good when it is kept pri- vate, since, wherever either person thinks he can do injustice with impunity, he does it.

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Indeed, every man believes that injustice is far more profitable to himself than justice. And any

d exponent of this argument will say he’s right, for someone who didn’t want to do injus- tice, given this sort of opportunity, and who didn’t touch other people’s property would be thought wretched and stupid by everyone aware of the situation, though, of course, they’d praise him in public, deceiving each other for fear of suffering injustice. So much for my second topic.

As for the choice between the lives we’re discussing, we’ll be able to make a correct

e judgment about that only if we separate the most just and the most unjust. Otherwise we won’t be able to do it. Here’s the separation I have in mind. We’ll subtract nothing from the injustice of an unjust person and nothing from the justice of a just one, but we’ll take each to be complete in his own way of life. First, therefore, we must suppose that an unjust person will act as clever craftsmen do: A first-rate captain or doctor, for example, knows the difference between what his craft can and can’t do. He attempts the first but

361 lets the second go by, and if he happens to slip, he can put things right. In the same way, an unjust person’s successful attempts at injustice must remain undetected, if he is to be fully unjust. Anyone who is caught should be thought inept, for the extreme of injus- tice is to be believed to be just without being just. And our com?pletely unjust person must be given complete injustice; nothing may be subtracted from it. We must allow that, while doing the greatest injustice, he has nonetheless provided himself with the greatest

b reputation for justice. If he happens to make a slip, he must be able to put it right. If any of his unjust activities should be discovered, he must be able to speak persuasively or to use force. And if force is needed, he must have the help of courage and strength and of the substantial wealth and friends with which he has provided himself.

Having hypothesized such a person, let’s now in our argument put beside him a just man, who is simple and noble and who, as Aeschylus says, doesn’t want to be believed to be

c good but to be so. We must take away his reputation, for a reputation for justice would bring him honor and rewards, so that it wouldn’t be clear whether he is just for the sake of justice itself or for the sake of those honors and rewards. We must strip him of every- thing except justice and make his situation the opposite of an unjust person’s. Though he does no injustice, he must have the greatest reputation for it, so that he can be

d tested as regards justice unsoftened by his bad reputation and its effects. Let him stay like that unchanged until he dies—just, but all his life believed to be unjust. In this way, both will reach the extremes, the one of justice and the other of injustice, and we’ll be able to judge which of them is happier.

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Whew! Glaucon, I said, how vigorously you’ve scoured each of the men for our competi- tion, just as you would a pair of statues for an art competition.

I do the best I can, he replied. Since the two are as I’ve described, in any case, it shouldn’t be difficult to complete the account of the kind of life that awaits each of them, but it must be done.

e And if what I say sounds crude, Socrates, remember that it isn’t I who speak but those who praise injustice at the expense of justice. They’ll say that a just person in such cir- cumstances will be whipped, stretched on a rack, chained, blinded with fire, and, at the end, when he has suffered every kind of evil, he’ll be impaled, and will realize then that

362 one shouldn’t want to be just but to be believed to be just. Indeed, Aeschylus’ words are far more correctly applied to unjust people than to just ones, for the supporters of injus- tice will say that a really unjust person, having a way of life based on the truth about things and not living in accordance with opinion, doesn’t want simply to be believed to be unjust but actually to be so—

Harvesting a deep furrow in his mind,

b Where wise counsels propagate.

He rules his city because of his reputation for justice; he marries into any family he wishes; he gives his children in marriage to anyone he wishes; he has contracts and partnerships with anyone he wants; and besides benefiting himself in all these ways, he profits because he has no scruples about doing injustice. In any contest, public or private, he’s the winner and outdoes his enemies. And by outdoing them, he becomes wealthy,

c benefiting his friends and harming his enemies. He makes adequate sacrifices to the gods and sets up magnificent offerings to them. He takes better care of the gods, there- fore, (and, indeed, of the human beings he’s fond of) than a just person does. Hence it’s likely that the gods, in turn, will take better care of him than of a just person. That’s what they say, Socrates, that gods and humans provide a better life for unjust people than for just ones.

d When Glaucon had said this, I had it in mind to respond, but his brother Adeimantus intervened: You surely don’t think that the position has been adequately stated?

Source: “Glaucon’s Challenge” from Plato, Republic, translated by G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve (Hackett Publishing Company, 1992). Reprinted with permission from Hackett Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Going Deeper

Are Ethical Standards Merely Expressions of Attitude? In the first part of the chapter, we considered the view that certain actions might be true but only in a way that is relative, such that other cultures or individuals cannot pass judgment on another culture’s or individual’s ethical standards. However, a further form of skepticism about morality disputes the idea that moral values and beliefs—or more precisely, claims that people make about morality—can be true or false at all. Instead, emotivism maintains that moral expressions like right, wrong, good, and bad are not claims about what is actually true but expressions of personal attitude.

Emotivism Think of when you might have been really annoyed by something, when someone did some- thing you really didn’t like, or when you were overjoyed or impressed by something. There are many expressions we might use to convey these feelings: words such as wow, dude, OMG, or any number of more potent swear words. When we utter such words or phrases, we are not conveying information or making a claim; rather, we are “emoting,” or expressing an atti- tude or feeling.

There are other phrases that might seem to be claims or statements of belief—and in some contexts may actually be just that—but which are frequently emotive expressions as well. Think of a sports fan who says, “The Chicago Cubs are the best.” Sometimes, the person utter- ing that phrase may believe that the team is the best in the league and is willing to support that claim. However, people often say such things knowing that their favorite team isn’t really the best team; they may even admit that the team is pretty lousy. This doesn’t prevent people from using a phrase like “The Cubs are the best” to convey that this is their favorite team. In this sense, they are using the phrase “The Cubs are the best” emotively to express their feeling about the team, rather than to assert a factual claim.

To take another example, consider a statement like “Anchovies are really good.” Someone who really likes the taste of anchovies may use that statement to convey this, knowing that many people hate the taste of anchovies and would disagree with that sentiment. Thus, what the anchovy lover means by his statement may be nothing more than an expression of his taste preferences. Of course, “Anchovies are good” could be meant to express something true, if one is talking about health benefits, for instance. In this sense, even someone who hates anchovies might be compelled to acknowledge the truth of that statement. But insofar as it expresses taste or attitude, there is no “truth” to that statement at all; “Anchovies are good” is essentially no different than saying “Anchovies . . . yum!”

Some philosophers have maintained that when we use moral expressions such as wrong or right or good or bad, we are using them emotively to express our attitudes and feelings about those kinds of actions, rather than to convey a belief about the way things really are. This view

Going Deeper

of the meaning of moral expressions is called emotivism (Ayer, 1952; Stevenson, 1937). For example, when we say something like “Murder is wrong,” emotivist theory suggests that what we really mean is “I don’t like murder” or “Murder makes me sick.” Most people share these sentiments. However, many people would maintain they mean more than this when they declare murder is wrong—they would insist there is something true about that statement and that someone who believes murder is okay is wrong. This is what the emotivist denies.

It is important to note that the emotivist is not suggesting that the statement “Murder is wrong” might be false. Nor is she proposing a relativist position according to which “Murder is wrong” or “Murder is okay” might both be true relative to one’s beliefs or commitments. Rather, the emotivist maintains that such statements are expressions of attitude, equivalent to expressions such as “Murder . . . ugh!” or “Murder . . . yeah!” There isn’t any truth to such expressions at all. They are merely indications of one’s attitude on such matters.

Is this really the best account of what we mean when we use terms such as right or wrong in the moral sense? It would no doubt strike many people as incorrect, or at least strange, to be told that statements about murder are no different than statements about anchovies or their favorite sports team. However, the emotivist has a ready defense.

When we make statements such as “Anchovies are healthy” or “The Cubs’ record makes them the best team in the league,” these are factual statements that can be verified or refuted. We might be able to show that anchovies contribute to a healthy diet or that the Cubs have won more games than any other team this season. But one could admit this while continuing to maintain that “anchovies are bad” as a matter of taste or “the Cubs suck” as a matter of loyalty and allegiance to a rival team. The key difference, according to emotivist theory, is that state- ments of fact can be supported with empirical evidence, while moral statements—and any statements having to do with value—cannot. This refers to what some philosophers call the fact/value distinction.

The fact/value distinction was forcefully defended by the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776). Hume was a champion of empiricism, the view that the only things we can be said to “know” are things that we can discern simply by using our reason—math- ematics and other “relations of ideas”—and things that we can observe with our senses. We can observe things like glass shattering after being hit with a hammer and use reason to con- clude that, as a matter of fact, the hammer caused the glass to break.

What we cannot do, Hume claimed, is use observation or reason to discern values, such as whether a certain outcome is good. For example, when we make a claim like “Eating ancho- vies will help Bill’s heart function properly” or “Lying to his friend will likely damage Bill’s relationship,” we can support such claims by appealing to observations and reasoning about the effects that eating anchovies or lying are likely to have. However, when we bring in a value term such as ought, as in the claims “Bill ought to eat more anchovies” or “Bill ought not lie to his friend,” Hume argued that we are introducing something that cannot be observed directly, nor can we reason to such conclusions from observations. Thus, these claims cannot be mat- ters of fact.

Going Deeper

Hume famously pointed out that moral arguments typically appeal to factual claims, such as how certain actions are likely to affect other people and other observations concerning human affairs. But nothing in that string of factual claims by itself can lead to a conclusion about what one ought or ought not to do. For example, we can rattle off all the health ben- efits of eating anchovies, but unless someone cares about those health benefits or wants to be healthy, there is no way to show him he ought to eat anchovies. Similarly, we can identify the effects of lying to one’s friends based on observation and reason. But unless one values friendships, such facts will leave a person cold and unmoved, and it is not compelling to say that one ought not lie to friends.

Thus, Hume’s crucial claim is that morality concerns how one ought to live, and claims about how one ought to live appeal to values. Values, in turn, depend on one’s feelings, attitudes, or in Hume’s terms, sentiments. One does not perceive values, Hume insisted; one feels them. Since facts have to do with what we can perceive, values—such as moral values—and claims about how one ought to live are not matters of fact but matters of sentiment or feeling.

This was a revolutionary argument at the time that Hume made it, and it has proved to be enormously influential ever since. It has also been met with a generous amount of criticism, but for now let us consider how it helps make sense of the emotivist position that moral state- ments are expressions of feeling and attitude rather than true/false statements. Recall that a statement like “Murder is wrong” is essentially the same as “Murder . . . ugh!” We balk at that idea, because we recognize that if someone does not share the same attitude or feeling about murder, we can’t really say they are mistaken.

The emotivist would respond by asking how we would support the claim that she is mistaken, as if she doesn’t have the facts straight. How could we do this? Perhaps we could appeal to facts about how murder ends a person’s life. Or we might claim that it makes society less secure, causes pain to the victim’s loved ones, or erases any contributions that the victim may have otherwise made to the world. These are all factual claims. However, it is only when we bring in attitudes such as “A person’s life and contributions are valuable” or “Pain and social insecurity are bad” that we can support the claim that “one ought not murder” or “murder is wrong.” Considering something valuable or worthy is an attitude, the emotivist would claim, not the result of observation with the five senses. Therefore, a moral claim like “murder is wrong” is ultimately an expression of an attitude about murder itself and associated things like life and pain, rather than a factual claim.

In backing away from technical arguments of this sort, however reasonable they might seem, it becomes apparent that there is still something amiss about the emotivist’s claim that when we utter phrases like “Murder is wrong,” we mean “Murder . . . ugh!” We seem to mean some- thing much stronger, like “I don’t care how anyone feels about murder, it’s a truly horrific crime!” Emotivist theorists try to account for this by adding that moral claims are not only expressions of attitude, but also attempts to get others to share our attitude. By asserting “Murder is truly awful” or “Helping others is truly great,” we invoke terms like truly, which have a powerful effect on people’s attitudes. After all, statements that purport to be factual are supposed to be independent of feelings and attitudes, and so invoking these terms provides the assertions with a sense of weight or authority that might sway someone else’s feelings

Going Deeper

and motivate them to act in certain ways. But this line of thought still supposes that when we say “Murder is truly awful,” we are merely expressing an attitude like “Murder is awful, and I want you to feel the same way” or perhaps “Don’t murder!” While we might mean this to a certain extent, this usually isn’t all that we mean. Rather, we generally mean that this asser- tion, and the desire that others share the attitude it expresses, is based in a conviction that the attitude we have corresponds to the truth. Accordingly, critics of emotivism worry that this account undermines the practice of moral reasoning and argumentation, reducing it from what appears to be a rational enterprise to little more than acts of manipulation (MacIntyre, 1984).

Finally, there are other uses of value terms that the emotivist doesn’t seem to be able to account for, since they clearly are not merely assertions expressing one’s attitude (Geach, 1965). For example, one might say, “If killing animals is wrong, you should stick to a vegetar- ian diet.” This would be a perfectly intelligible use of the word wrong even if the person utter- ing this sentence was perfectly fine with killing animals; thus, the use of wrong is meaningful without being an expression of attitude. Instead, wrong refers to something that may or may not be true of killing animals.

The general term for the view that there cannot be any such things as objective moral facts is “antirealism,” and some later antirealists have tried to address these kinds of objections. Some defend a position called error theory (Mackie, 1977), which holds that we talk about moral values as if they were real when in truth they are not, and in so doing we are commit- ting an error. Others agree that moral statements are expressions of attitude and thus not statements that can be true or false, but try to explain why it still makes sense to treat them as factual statements rather than regarding that treatment as a mere error. These theories often go by labels such as “prescriptivism” (Hare, 1952), “quasi-realism” (Blackburn, 1998), and “expressivism” (Gibbard, 1990), and along with emotivism fall under the more general term noncognitivism (Van Roojen, 2013).

Whether one takes an emotivist view or that of its noncognitivist successors, one rejects the notion that ethical values are part of the fabric of reality such that we can be factually correct or incorrect about whether certain things are good, bad, right, or wrong. This raises deep philosophical questions not simply about morality itself but about what it would mean to consider something “real” or “true” and how we might learn of such realities and truths if they exist. For some critics of noncognitivism, their mistake lies partly in their assumption that the only things that can be real or true, aside from abstract truths like those of mathematics, are those that can be empirically observed, measured, or tested. Are there realities that fall outside of these categories, and could moral values be among them?