Morals, Metaphysics and Naturalism
5. Objections
In this essay, I present an analogical argument for a naturalist account, free of metaphysics, of the historical development and genuine normativity of our system of morality. Here, I deal with three objections to my argument.
Objection 1: Moral laws intuited by special moral sense
The first objection points to a distinction between traffic laws and moral laws that purports to undermine the validity of my analogy. Moral laws, it is supposed, are unlike traffic laws that are determined by social agreement. In addition to our physical senses, it is argued, we have a moral sense that detects non-natural aspects of the universe. True and binding universal moral rules are intuited using this special moral sense.
My response is that the strength of my analogy consists in showing how positing intuition or some other mysterious non-natural means of discerning moral obligations is not required for an adequate explanation of moral phenomena. Proposing a special faculty of intuition may have served as a stopgap while no better explanation was available. Just as we do not need to postulate spooky intuition as the detector of traffic rules, we no longer need to posit same as the perceiver of moral rules. Unlike our traffic rules, we may not immediately see their socially prescribed nature. We easily recognize traffic laws as an artefact of recent history prompted by the necessity of having to manage the use and misuse of emerging technologies. The natural social beginnings of our moral rules happened in the distant past, beyond our ordinary ken.
In addition, moral rules seem so obviously true because these rules have been inculcated into us from birth. They also seem self-evidently true as they are grounded in our natural sense of empathy as social creatures. Here, there is greater similarity with traffic rules than perhaps seems at first sight. The normativity of both moral rules and traffic rules are internalized to a large extent, requiring little deliberative intervention. Drivers do not need to think about stopping at a red traffic light in the same way a citizen does not need to ruminate on whether they should avoid killing their neighbour. For traffic rules, however, this internalization occurs within a much shorter span of time and at a much later stage in life. In both cases, though, the habituation is complete, making it appear entirely obvious that we should stop at red traffic lights and not kill our neighbour.
The self-justifying nature of moral rules to some extent is also a function of language. It is contradictory to assert that 'murder is allowable', 'stealing is permissible' and 'cheating is discretionary' because the terms used in these pronouncements are already expressive of a negative moral evaluation. 'Murder', 'stealing' and 'cheating' are not neutral descriptors. An essential part of their meaning is their prohibitory nature. Asserting 'murder is allowable' is self-contradictory as it is an assertion that a morally unjustified killing is morally allowable. All things considered, the self-evidentiary nature of moral rules reinforces the aptness of my analogy with road rules.
Objection 2: Moral laws require divine moral lawgiver
A second objection is that moral rules grounded in human convention have no normative force as socially-mandated agreements may be mistaken. Might—the will of the majority—is not right. Without a divine lawgiver, the objection goes, we have no reason to obey man-made laws.
One problem with this objection is that the objection can be turned against the objector. A divine giver of the law may themselves be mistaken. Likewise, the power of the divine lawgiver, no matter how powerful they may be, does not guarantee the correctness of their mandated law. That different religious metaphysicians advocate for different divine lawgivers (e.g., Yahweh, Allah, Brahmin, Tarhun, Matt) imposing different laws only reinforces the fact that any such proposed lawgiver and law needs to be morally evaluated independently of their claimed status as lawgiver. Each of us cannot avoid our moral responsibility in passing moral judgment on any moral law proposed by a metaphysician in the name of their god.
Perhaps the biggest problem with this objection is that it misconstrues the kind of naturalist account I am giving here. On my view, the correctness of a moral rule is not determined by vote or popularity. Which rules are moral and which not is not defined by the will of the majority; the strongest voice. Just as there is a fact of the matter about which set of road rules best serves the interests of road users for safety and convenience, there is a fact of the matter about which set of moral rules best regulate human social interactions in order to optimise individual and collective welfare. The objector is correct in that the power exercised by a majority in any given society is not determinative of moral law. In like fashion, the objector must concede that the power exercised by a supposed divine lawgiver does not determine the content of moral laws.
The facts about which laws are in our individual and collective best interests to follow do not fall from the sky. In the light of this, tolerant and inquisitive societies rely on empirical enquiry, reasoned debate and collective decision-making. The various spokespersons for the divine law-maker are quick to point out how their god knows infallibly that which is for our good and that their god has entrusted them with the divine formula. With this admission, these metaphysicians have conceded to the naturalist that moral laws are not defined by their god's will after all, but by what is to our overall benefit. Secondly, starkly contradictory moral claims made by these metaphysicians from competing schools of religious thought put paid to the reliability of their way of knowing what is best for humanity.
In any case, even if the proposed divine being's laws were truly moral, this objector still needs to explain why we ought to obey them. There remains the problem of genuine normativity—the obligatoriness of moral law—even when the source of the moral law is shifted from social consensus to a single lawgiver. On a naturalist account of the sort I give here, there is motivation to obey the moral law as obeying the law is to our individual and collective advantage. On the divine lawgiver account, the reason to obey is left hanging. If it be answered that it is in our individual and collective interest to obey the moral law, then this response reverts to a down-to-earth motivation for obeying the law. In that case, the proposed metaphysical grounding of the moral law is superfluous. The divine law-maker is doing no work in the explanation over and above that which is given in my naturalist account. It is a lame duck of an explanation.
Objection 3: Moral laws are universal
A third objection is that unlike traffic rules, moral rules are not simply local manifestations. The same moral rules, the objection goes, apply to all people at all times. Moral rules are universal while traffic rules vary from locality to locality.
My answer is that with regards locality and universality, traffic rules and moral rules are much more analogous than given by initial appearances. First, regarding local variations, moral rules seem to vary at least as much from region to region as traffic rules. Moral rules regulating suicide, apostasy, use of force, property, abortion, sex, marriage and every other substantive life issue, vary from strict prohibition to permissibility as one moves from one region to another. Even universal moral rules such as 'Do not kill an innocent person' and 'Do not steal' are interpreted radically differently in different regions and times. In some regions, a foetus is a 'person' while in others not. In some regions, an apostate and a heathen are not considered 'innocent', in others they are. In some moral codes, government-imposed tax is considered theft. In others, private property is regarded as theft.
At the same time, where there is undoubted universality in moral rules, there is likewise in traffic rules. Beyond the general moral maxims enunciated in the Golden Rule and the prohibitions on killing, stealing, lying and breaking promises, the clearest exemplification of well-specified moral rules is the 30 Articles contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (see United Nations [1948]). Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly towards the end of 1948, this was a crowning achievement of a globally agreed set of moral strictures.
This universality is likewise a feature of traffic rules. Building on the 1949 Geneva Convention on Road Traffic, the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic (see United Nations [1968a]) is an international treaty ratified at the United Nations Economic and Social Council's Conference on Road Traffic in late 1968. The treaty serves to facilitate international road traffic and to increase road safety by establishing standard traffic rules. Signed at the same time and superseding the 1909 International Convention on Motor Traffic, the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals Traffic (see United Nations [1968b]) established the international standard for signing systems for road traffic.
This evolution towards the internationalizing of human conventions is also a characteristic of games. For example, following more than a century of local variants, the games of soccer and chess are now covered by international codes. So, on closer inspection, the universality of both traffic rules and moral rules strengthens my analogy instead of weakening it.
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The argument presented in this essay demonstrates that moral laws need no supernatural or metaphysical foundation to possess normative force. Just as we have good reason to obey traffic laws without invoking divine commands or a transcendental dimension, we have equally good reason to obey moral laws on purely naturalistic grounds. Both systems of rules emerge from human deliberation, serve vital social purposes and bind us through their contribution to individual and collective welfare. The metaphysician's insistence on grounding morality in some otherworldly realm creates an unnecessary obstacle, demanding that we accept their particular metaphysical scheme before we can accept even basic moral prohibitions against killing and lying. By contrast, the naturalistic account offered here grounds our moral obligations in that which we all share—our common humanity, our interdependence and our capacity for reasoned cooperation. In dispensing with metaphysical mystery-mongering, we do not weaken the force of moral law; rather, we strengthen it by making it accessible to all, regardless of their theological or metaphysical commitments.
