The Argument From Queerness

[Gabelo Camphire]

Ihaven't seen this anywhere, but I would raise the specter of laws of nature with causal powers as 'queer' entities. We know that laws like F = ma are entirely descriptive; objects do not obey F = ma [to various approximations] because of F = ma. A compelling reason to believe this is that in certain regimes, F = ma is a very bad approximation: high gravity and relativistic speeds. Therefore, F = ma has no causal power; the causal power relies somewhere else. (I will ignore the Regularity Theory on the basis of Rom Harr's Causal Powers: Theory of Natural Necessity.)

What is the nature of these causally potent laws of nature? They dictate how [physical] things must be and how they must change. But they don't lie in the things, as if they're another kind of 'thing-hood'. Indeed, they appear to be an entirely different ontological category than physical things. These laws of nature have to be kind of like God: timeless and omnipresent. Edward Feser makes this point:

The argument from queerness is described by Mackie in "Ethical Theory: An Anthology", Second ed., edited by Russ Shafer-Landau, Chapter 3, especially pp. 28-29. On p.24 he describes what sort of values he denies:

Even more important, however, and certainly more generally applicable, is the argument from queerness. This has two parts, one metaphysical, the other epistemological. If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe. Correspondingly, if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else.

No argument for anything can be constructed on empiricist foundations or on any other foundations. If you assess ideas using argument then the arguments have premises and rules of inference and the result of the argument may not be true (or probably true) if the premises and rules of inference are false. You might try to solve this by coming up with a new argument that proves the premises and rules of inference but then you have the same problem with those premises and rules of inference. You might say that some stuff is indubitably true (or probably true), and you can use that as a foundation. But that just means you have cut off a possible avenue of intellectual progress since the foundation can't be explained in terms of anything deeper. And in any case there is nothing that can fill that role. Sense experience won't work since you can misinterpret information from your sense organs, e.g. - optical illusions. Sense organs also fail to record lots of stuff that does exist, e.g. - neutrinos. Scientific instruments aren't infallible either since you can make mistakes in setting them up, in interpreting information from them and so on.

We don't create knowledge (useful or explanatory information) by showing stuff is true or probably true for reasons so how do we create knowledge? We can only create knowledge by finding mistakes in our current ideas and correcting them piecemeal. You notice a problem with your current ideas, propose solutions, criticise the solutions until only one is left and then find a new problem. We shouldn't say that a theory is false because it hasn't been proven because this applies to all theories. Rather, we should look at what problems it aims to solve and ask whether it solves them. We should look at whether it is compatible with other current knowledge and if not try to figure out the best solution. Should the new idea be discarded or the old idea or can some variant of both solve the problem?

In the light of this there is another problem with what Mackie is saying. He specifies that morality would tell an agent to do something that is not contingent on "any present desire". But any position can be undermined by proposing criticisms it can't answer and an alternative that solves the resulting problems. Present desires are no different from any other position in this respect.

But then how to we find moral knowledge? The answer is that you specify some goal and work out what sort of behaviour would be required to do it if you take it seriously as an explanation and apply it universally. And it turns out that no matter what goal you choose maximising the extent to which you can do it pushes you in the direction of doing some things and not others. And if you choose the wrong goal, that's all right too since the goal can be corrected by critical discussion in the light of other explanations. For more on this topic see

Opposition to the Argument from Relativity can, broadly speaking, taketwo forms. First, one might deny the empirical premise, arguing thatmoral disagreement is not really as widespread as it is often made outto be, or at least arguing that much of the conspicuous disagreementmasks extensive moral agreement at a deeper level (a levelpertaining to more fundamental moral principles). Mackie makes somebrief remarks in response to this argument (1977: 37). Second, onemight accept the phenomenon of moral disagreement at face value butdeny that the best explanation of this favors the error theory. Oftenboth strategies are deployed side by side. For discussion, see Brink1984; Shafer-Landau 1994; Loeb 1998; Lillehammer 2004; Tersman 2006;Doris & Plakias 2008.

Moral nihilism is distinct from moral relativism, which allows for actions to be wrong relative to a particular culture or individual. It is also distinct from expressivism, according to which when we make moral claims, "We are not making an effort to describe the way the world is ... we are venting our emotions, commanding others to act in certain ways, or revealing a plan of action".[3][citation needed]

Moral nihilism today broadly tends to take the form of an Error Theory: The view developed originally by J.L. Mackie in his 1977 book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Error theory and nihilism broadly take the form of a negative claim about the existence of objective values or properties. Under traditional views there are moral properties or methods which hold objectively in some sense beyond our contingent interests which morally obligate us to act. For Mackie and the Error Theorists, such properties do not exist in the world, and therefore morality conceived of by reference to objective facts must also not exist. Therefore, morality in the traditional sense does not exist.[citation needed]

However, holding nihilism does not necessarily imply that one should give up using moral or ethical language; some nihilists contend that it remains a useful tool.[4] In fact Mackie and other contemporary defenders of Error Theory, such as Richard Joyce, defend the use of moral or ethical talk and action even in knowledge of their fundamental falsity. The legitimacy of this activity is a subject of debate in philosophy.

Nihilists differ in the scope of their theories. Error theorists typically claim that it is only distinctively moral claims which are false; practical nihilists claim that there are no reasons for action of any kind; some nihilists extend this claim to include reasons for belief.

J. L. Mackie argues that moral assertions are only true if there are moral properties, but because there are none, all such claims are false.[5] Under such a view moral propositions which express beliefs are then systematically in error. For under Mackie's view, if there are to be moral properties, they must be objective and therefore not amenable to differences in subjective desires and preferences. Moreover any claims that these moral properties, if they did exist would need to be intrinsically motivating by being in some primitive relation to our consciousness. They must be able of guiding us morally just by the fact of being in some clear awareness of their truth.

Other versions of the theory claim that moral assertions are not true because they are neither true nor false. This form of moral nihilism claims that moral beliefs and assertions presuppose the existence of moral facts that do not exist. Consider, for example, the claim that the present king of France is bald. Some argue that this claim is neither true nor false because it presupposes that there is currently a king of France, but there is not. The claim suffers from "presupposition failure". Richard Joyce[6] argues for this form of moral nihilism under the name "fictionalism".

Thus, we always lapse into error when thinking in moral terms. We are trying to state the truth when we make moral judgments. But since there is no moral truth, all of our moral claims are mistaken. Hence the error. These three principles lead to the conclusion that there is no moral knowledge. Knowledge requires truth. If there is no moral truth, there can be no moral knowledge. Thus moral values are purely chimerical.[3][7]

A pressing question is how one might apply the belief that there are no objective morals. Perhaps the most common response, and the position which Mackie adopts, is to view moralizing as an inherently useful practice, and that everyone is better off behaving in a moralistic manner.[8]

Of course there are entities that meet these criteria. It's true that they are queer sorts of entities and that knowing them isn't like anything else. But that doesn't mean that they don't exist. ... For it is the most familiar fact of human life that the world contains entities that can tell us what to do and make us do it. They are people, and the other animals.[13]

Other criticisms of the argument include noting that the very fact that such entities would have to be something fundamentally different from what we normally experience, therefore assumably outside our sphere of experience, we cannot prima facie have reason to either doubt or affirm their existence. Therefore if one had independent grounds for supposing such things to exist (such as a reductio ad absurdum of the contrary) the argument from queerness cannot give one any particular reason to think otherwise. An argument along these lines has been provided by e.g. Akeel Bilgrami.[14]

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