Realism, Naturalism, and Natural Law (Gandalf Repost)

[Captain Compassion]

>Many of the moral theories that survive to this day from their historical
>origins do so as relics of world attitudes that did not survive the
>Enlightenment era of scientific and philosophical change. One interesting
>aspect to modern theories of rights is that they owe at least part of their
>origin to theories now known to be mistaken in some serious fashion. This
>is not to suggest that these theories of morality do not have modern
>defenders. It's difficult to find any philosophical argument that doesn't
>have a modern defender somewhere. But, for the most part, such theories
>have been discarded by the majority of philosophers in favor of revised
>opinions on such matters.
>
>The fact that human beings went on to devise modern theories of morality,
>law and government on the foundation of logically flawed metaethical
>theories is, in a way, quite remarkable. The human capacity for making
>things work that ought not to work due to some fatal flaw in their design is
>a tribute to the power of belief. It is also, it seems to me, a tribute to
>the human habit of using philosophical arguments as excuses and not as
>reasons. A full discussion of that aspect of human nature goes beyond the
>intention of this series of essays, but I cannot help but note it in
>passing. One moralist in designing a list of characteristics that all moral
>systems should possess was wise enough to include "publicity" as one of the
>salient features of any workable system. She wondered if any moral system
>could survive that did not have such qualities as popular appeal,
>'catchiness,' and various other Madison Avenue qualities.
>
>Three moral points of view that were very marketable in their time are
>Realism, Naturalism and Natural Law. Realism and Naturalism are very
>closely related and Natural Law is a logical derivation of Naturalism. I
>bring these terms up because of their historical connection with the concept
>of Rights. Although I believe it is quite possible to arrive at a theory of
>rights without reference to these concepts, that's not the way it actually
>happened.
>
>REALISM
>
>A definition of realism varies depending on what aspect of philosophy is
>being discussed. Even in morality, 'realism' is sometimes employed as a
>sort of attitude one can take toward moral matters, a 'no nonsense' view of
>life as it were. For our purposes, however, realism equates with the belief
>that phenomena of a particular kind exist apart from how we think about
>them, or whether we can describe them accurately, or even how we might feel
>about them. Realism holds that certain things exist objectively and are
>unchangeable whether we 'believe' they exist or not. More specifically,
>with respect to morality, Moral Realism holds that there are immutable
>'moral facts' that exist independently of our ability to describe them, our
>attitude toward them, or our belief in them. An important corollary to this
>theory is that of 'Semantic Realism.' Semantic Realism holds that every
>declarative statement we can make has a definite truth value [it's either
>true or false] even if there is no way for us to know whether it is true or
>false.
>
>By way of an example of realism, we can suppose that God decides that there
>is such a thing as 'goodness.' Obviously, those who subscribe to this
>belief hold that there must be 'goodness' in the world because God has said
>that there is. The way in which such a belief is a realist belief is that
>those who hold it would say that it doesn't make any difference whether or
>not the rest of us---or any of us, in fact---can make provable logical
>statements about 'goodness.' Nor does it matter whether we actually
>understand the full scope of the word goodness. Nor does it matter whether
>all of us actually believe that such a thing as 'goodness' exists. In
>short, Realism holds that the existence of an entity is not predicated on
>our ability to make statements about it, nor on our belief in it.
>
>Moral Non-cognitivism is the principle competitor for realism, in that
>non-cognitivism holds that since 'moral' statements are statements about ent
>ities that cannot be reduced to true/false statements, such statements are
>effectively meaningless as are systems or theories based on such statements.
>Though this is obviously an contrasting point of view, it doesn't really
>argue against realism so much as it merely denies it. Realism is saying
>moral statements are about real things. Non-cognitivism is saying moral
>statements are not about real things. If this were the only true state of
>affairs we could simply put it down to a matter of pure opinion on both
>sides and let it go as being unworthy of further discussion. Although
>arguments frequently come down to trading 'I'm right and you're wrong'
>assertions, such arguments are not philosophical in nature.
>
>NATURALISM
>
>In order to see why realists might be mistaken in their beliefs, it's
>necessary to go on to a kindred group of views haphazardly grouped under the
>omnium gatherum term of "Naturalism." Naturalists like Realists believe
>that moral statements are real statements. In general, naturalists believe
>that normative ethics is all about finding out all sorts of empirical facts
>about human nature, social, biological, evolutionary, and so on.
>Metaethically, Moral Naturalists believe that moral concepts should be
>analysed in terms of scientific facts and natural properties. A typical
>moral naturalist might believe that the best moral theory is based on man's
>evolutionary background in that it should be built out of empirical facts
>concerning man's biological propensities as an evolved and evolving
>organism. The moral naturalist might argue that these biological facts have
>moral significance because they say something about what is in man's best
>interest as an evolving organism.
>
>THE NATURALISTIC FALLACY AND HUME'S LAW
>
>The main reason these various theories are called "Naturalism" is not
>because they all have to do with moral systems that involve 'nature.' Some
>of them do not. They are called naturalism because they are all examples of
>a peculiar flaw in logic first identified by G.E. Moore in an important book
>on morality called *Principia Ethica.* Moore called this flaw in logic the
>"Naturalistic Fallacy." Moore gave several formulations of the fallacy. I
>will give one that I think is the most understandable.
>
>Part of what any metaethical theory does is attempt to define certain moral
>terms such as "good/bad," "right/wrong," and so on. If we say that "a dog
>is a mammal of the genus 'Canis' and the species 'familiaris' part of what
>we're attempting to do is state those qualities that are a part of 'dogness'
>that are not shared by other states of being that are not 'dogness.' A dog
>shares his 'mammalness' with other mammals, but a dog does not share it's
>Genus AND it's species with other mammals. Hence a definition attempts to
>isolate what is defined from all other entities that we might define. In
>the definition above, the word "is," is a way of informing us that being a
>mammal of the genus Canis and the species familiaris ARE CONTAINED within
>the idea of "dogness." Note, in particular, that they are not exactly the
>same thing. There is more to being a dog than the qualities of genus and
>species.
>
>When we turn our attention to moral entities, a peculiar problem emerges.
>If I was to say that "working hard is good" it wouldn't quite be the same as
>our definition of a dog. We might automatically ask 'do you mean that it's
>good to work hard or do you mean that working hard really IS good?' If
>working hard IS good then goodness and working hard don't just share
>characteristics, they're actually the same thing. If this is true then our
>statement is the same as saying either "working hard is working hard" or
>"good is good." Either way, we've failed to say anything meaningful. In
>general, whenever a metaethical system of morality attempts to define a
>moral goal such as "goodness" or "the right" in terms of something that is
>not moral, we get this same Naturalistic Fallacy. Another way of putting it
>was devised long ago in ancient Greece by Plato when he asked "is a thing
>good because the gods will it, or do the gods will it because it is good?"
>If an act is good solely because God wills it, then God's will and the
>goodness of the act are exactly the same. "It's good to be kind because God
>wills it" becomes "It's good to be kind because it's good to be kind." The
>flip side of this very old and subtle argument is that: if the gods will
>something BECAUSE it is good then it must be good independently of their
>will. Since this is the case, the will of the gods alone cannot be
>sufficient to explain WHY something is good.
>
>There is another reason that naturalistic versions of reality are fatally
>flawed. It was first introduced by one of the greatest philosophers, David
>Hume and it has disconcerting consequences for all moral philosophies.
>
>Hume noticed that whenever he read naturalistic arguments they always
>started out with certain empirical facts such as 'this thing is true,' and
>'that thing is true.' Somewhere along the line, he would always find that
>suddenly the philosopher isn't using the word "is" anymore, but has
>abandoned it in favor or the word "ought.' In the argument:
>
>1. John is a human being.
>Therefore John is mortal.
>
>.....the word "is" appears in both the premise and the conclusion. Note
>also that the same KIND of things, or 'terms,' appear in both the premise
>and the conclusion. But in:
>
>2. John is a human being
>Therefore, John ought to be kind.
>
>....the word "is" still appears in the premise, but has disappeared from the
>conclusion. Worse, the KIND of terms that appear in the premise no longer
>appear in the conclusion. The conclusion seems to be treating a very
>different kind of term, a moral term.
>
>This kind of phenomenon, which is common to all forms of naturalistic
>argument, came to be known as "Hume's Law," sometimes paraphrased as "you
>can't get from an "IS" to an "OUGHT.""
>
>Because all naturalistic moral systems transgress both the Naturalistic
>Fallacy and Hume's Law, none of these theories are logically acceptable.
>Moral systems based on Man's nature as a biological creature, Man's nature
>as a child of God, Man's nature as a thinking being and so on all commit
>these two fallacies.
>
>THE CHALLENGE OF REALISM
>
>Which takes us back, in a roundabout way to realism with its claim that
>moral entities exist regardless of our ability to express them. Many
>philosophers discard realism out of hand as essentially meaningless. If we
>cannot make statements about something that can be, in principle, true or
>false, why make statements at all? This is particularly true with respect
>to Semantic Realism which holds that all statements have a truth value,
>irrespective of our ability to 'know' that they do. If such is the case, if
>it is true that I can never 'know' that some statements are true or false in
>principle, then there seems little point in making the statements at all.
>This all harkens back to the 'brains in the vats' question of Classical
>Skepticism. If some aspect of reality is closed to us on principle, then it
>effectively is NOT a part of OUR reality.
>
>A more fundamental problem with realism comes by way of recognizing that one
>of the jobs of morality is to furnish us with reasons for doing things.
>It's nearly impossible to talk about reasons for doing things without
>talking about desires. And it's quite impossible to talk about desires
>without noticing that most desires are subjective. If this is true, and it
>seems to be so, the idea that there is some objective and unchangeable moral
>reality that exists apart from our subjective viewpoint appears to be
>unlikely.
>
>NATURAL LAW
>
>The belief that man's nature should inform us of moral truths ultimately
>gave rise, in ancient Greek philosophy as well as the writings of Thomas
>Aquinas [among others], of the idea of Natural Law. Since man's morality is
>due in part to his nature [god-given or otherwise], a natural law of
>morality is universal and not based on some local laws or customs. For
>Aquinas and most medieval philosophers, this law took the form of a
>universal expression of the force of God's will. Aristotle contrasted his
>concept of Natural Law, which he felt was an expression of man's biological
>function in the world with human conventions which were moral only in so far
>as they adequately mirrored Natural Law.
>
>Modern Natural law, which harkens back to Grotius, has as its central
>beliefs the free and equal nature of man. This view is behind Locke's *Two
>Treatises of Civil Government,* is echoed in Rousseau's *Contract social,*
>and is carried over virtually untouched into the Declaration of
>Independence. Natural Law here perceives human beings as natural
>sovereigns. Sovereignty demands respect much as a sovereign state demands
>respect. In this view, violations of that sovereignity can only be "lawful"
>if they are entered into by agreement. Otherwise they are morally, not just
>legally wrong. Since Natural Law always comes before conventional law, it
>can be used as the basis for rebellion against standing laws. Religious
>components can be a part of Natural Law but they don't have to be.
>
>TWO OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL LAW
>
>Is everything that happens naturally for the best? Grandparental
>protestations of "it's all for the best" to one side, it seems relatively
>obvious that leaving things alone and letting "nature" take its course is,
>after all, not what society is about. Societies are in many senses overtly
>non-natural and for what seem like very good reasons. The Lockean version
>of Natural Law has been objected to because it leads to
>over-individualization and is effectively anti-social. Worse, because
>Natural Laws are not codified and available to all, some of the worst
>atrocities could be and have been committed in the name of Natural Law.
>Hitler's version of the 'natural destiny' of the German people was a version
>of natural law that very effectively sealed the fate of all those so
>misfortunate as to be born something other than German.
>
>A more theoretical, logical objection to Natural Law reiterates what we have
>already said concerning the naturalistic fallacy and Hume's Law. What sort
>of thing is 'natural law?' What kind of statements can we make about it?
>We know there is such a thing as nature and we know that WE create laws. We
>also know that in trying to decipher the way nature works, we often refer to
>things we call 'laws' of nature. But how do we get from US to Nature? Does
>nature actually have social rules that we can emulate but not otherwise
>define or know? If this is the case, how could we know it to be the case?
>And if we cannot make statements about natural law or how it might have come
>to be, why bother with it at all? Remember, again, that one of the
>principle duties of morality is to give us good reasons for doing the things
>we do. If Natural Law is beyond our ability to reason, how can it serve as
>a firm foundation for our actions?
>
>I have no answer to these questions. That Natural Law, like Naturalism and
>Realism is theoretically flawed is without question. But it is also beyond
>question that doctrines of "inherent rights" arose from such theories. It
>would seem that if we insist that Rights are only understandable as facets
>of these beliefs, the belief in Rights must fail.
>
>But it is by no means necessary that we make that connection. A principle
>of rights may well be able to stand on its own without reference to its
>historical antecedents.
>

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"Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men;
it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief
which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting
suicidally in the lost cause of the past." - Will Durant

"If you can't eat their food, drink their liquor, fuck their
whores and take their money and STILL vote AGAINST them, you
don't belong in this business." -- Jess Unruh.

"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us,
'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" -- Dosteovsky

Joseph R. Darancette
res0...@NOSPAMverizon.net