Some reflections on moral anti-realism

This article is part of an informal series I’m writing on philosophy. The idea is simultaneously to do some philosophy, while also modeling what the practice of philosophy is like, in a way that is simple and accessible to those who don’t yet have a background but want to learn more. As always, if you enjoy this piece, I’d really love you to share it.

The first thing I want to do in this article is introduce you to a bunch of concepts that you might find useful for thinking about politics, ethics, and the world generally. Once I’ve done that I want to make a -to the best of my knowledge, novel in the philosophical literature- argument about how some of these concepts interact. Then I want to consider some related but separate reflections about whether there’s any reason the ethical anti-realist should aim at consistency in their ethical judgements.

Many people have tied moral realism to a kind of dogmatism in moral belief and action. I want to argue the opposite, the anti-realist has a reason to be dogmatic the realist doesn’t.

1. The concepts

The first concept I want to introduce is that of moral hedging. To morally hedge is to account of the possibility that your moral views are wrong. Suppose, for example, that you are uncertain of whether or not you should eat animal meat, and, on reflection, you think that it is 40% likely that you should stop eating animal meat. If eating animal meat is wrong, you suspect that it is very wrong, whereas if eating animal meat is right, it is, nonetheless, not necessary. Thus, you conclude that you should stop eating animal meat. This is moral hedging.

Although the matter is disputed, it seems to me reasonable to think that moral hedging makes sense in at least some cases. We have all been in a situation where we felt pretty confident that something which would give us an advantage was morally right, yet not fully sure, and as a result not gone through with it. What is this but moral hedging? This remains true, I think, even if we only count cases in which the uncertainty is purely moral, and not at all uncertainty over the facts.

The second concept I want to introduce is moral realism. Moral realism as I define it holds that:

1. Moral sentences like “the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima was morally wrong” express propositions, and are at least sometimes true or false. [This excludes moral non-cognitivism]

2. Moreover, moral sentences are sometimes true. [This excludes error theory]

3. Moreover still, moral sentences are true in a way that is not purely dependent on the speaker’s own mind. They are not true just in the way statements like “this is tasty” are- that is to say they are not just a statement of the subject’s own feelings, attitudes or other psychological features. The exact description of what mind-independence means is notoriously difficult, but this will do as a first pass. [What we are trying to exclude here is subjectivism]

Note that this conception of moral realism is a relatively strong one. Some authors exclude point 3.

Moral anti-realism is the denial of one or more of these claims. Personally, I deny the third, I believe that moral statements are really statement’s about the speaker’s own feelings, or rather, guesses about what they would feel about something under ‘ideal’ conditions of perfect knowledge of all the (non-moral) facts.

The third and final concept I want to introduce is terminology of my own invention, though thousands of others have alluded to the concept itself. That is the idea of a dichotomy between inside and outside error. An inside error is a mistake in thinking that you could spot on the basis of other things you believe. An outside error is one that no amount of thinking about what you currently believe will show to be an error- you simply have the wrong information and it has led you to error.

2. The interaction between anti-realism and hedging

Here’s a cute way these concepts might interact that, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t been previously noticed.

Suppose you reject moral realism(1). You don’t think that there are outside moral truths that can be appealed to. Well, you might still acknowledge that you can make mistakes about morality, for example, if some of your commitments contradict other of your commitments- but the idea of being outside wrong- of being wrong in a way that is consistent with everything else you believe, only makes sense if there is some external moral yardstick. Thus moral anti-realism allows for an inside error in your beliefs or actions, but not an outside error.

It seems to me that this means that often the moral anti-realist has less reason to hedge than the moral realist. Every time the moral realist finds someone with clashing intuitions, she has to wonder whether she might not just be wrong, and the other right. No such anxiety needs to trouble the moral anti-realist.

This came out in a discussion between myself and a friend of mine who is a moral realist. We were discussing what we would do if we had superhuman powers- how we would relate to existing democracies and such.

Suppose there was a class of people imprisoned, you felt, unjustly. You could break them out of prison effortlessly and without risk. Indeed, you could force the reform of the legal system so they wouldn’t be imprisoned anymore. With your powers, you could force any government to do just about anything. The only barrier- a clear majority of the population disagreed with you, and the legal process through which these people had been convicted was procedurally fair. Would you jailbreak these people?

I answered yes, but my moral realist friend answered no. When we were talking about our reasons, it became clear that moral realism was part of it. For her, it was possible that her intuitions had failed, and everyone else had it right. For me, there was no fact of the matter about whether I or everyone else was “right”, and no possibility that my beliefs represented an outside error.

Anti-realism then leads us away from certain types of moral hedging, and, insomuch as moral hedging is a good reason to respect democracy, may even remove one reason to respect democracy. I find this interesting because, in the popular imagination, anti-realism is often associated with a broad tolerance and respect for the views of others, whereas realism is often associated with dogmatism.

Another reason this is interesting is that it is a possible counterexample to a claim that is often made in philosophy- that meta-ethical views don’t affect ethical practice.

3. Anti-realism and consistency

In writing the above piece I had some conversations with Kieran in which he put to me a provocative question- why should the anti-realist be worried even about internal “error”. Or more precisely, why should the anti-realist care about trying to have consistent moral attitudes? Provocatively, the anti-realist might have good reasons to behave ethically in various situations, but why should they have reason to engage in the process of normative ethics- of codifying and clarifying values? Why should they bother with ethical philosophy at all?

For someone who believes in external moral truths, who rejects anti-realism, there is a simple answer- consistency is a necessary (though far from sufficient!) condition for being right. For the anti-realist, the answer is less obvious.

Perhaps many people simply have a taste for consistency and coherence. This could be one good justification for engaging in normative ethics- the project of trying to create a consistent and complete ethical system- but are there other reasons to seek consistency? Imagine someone who doesn’t feel any inherent pull to consistency. How could we tempt such a person to the philosophical project of trying to create consistent values? How could we corrupt them away from their innocent pre-philosophical state and make them engage in the search for consistent ethics, despite their anti-realism?

While Googling this question I found a post by 3Quarks daily on the same topic. Their answer was that various of our ethical feelings (e.g. an inclination to fairness) already contain within them the seeds of a demand for consistency. I think this a good justification for consistency as far as it goes, but there might be forms of inconsistency that don’t abrogate a person’s sense of fairness. Thus I’m not sure this can be a complete answer.

I’m starting to think maybe there can’t be a complete answer. Thus, it’s possible that, on occasion, it will perfectly reasonable for the anti-realist not to worry about consistency. Yet I think there is a patchwork of justifications for wanting to be consistent, that will cover most cases for most people.

I have two additional reasons for the anti-realist to care about consistency. The first is about conscience. If I simply behave on the basis of my moral instincts in each individual situation, I may be more vulnerable to regret- to looking back and thinking “actually that wasn’t right”. If I clarify for myself where I stand on moral issues, i.e. by sorting through and creating tidy rules, I am less likely to do things that I later regret because the rules are clearer. This process may also help with planning behavior.

The second reason I want to add for the anti-realist to care about consistency is communication. Consistent, complete and compact ethical principles allow for the easier articulation of what one wants. This eases negotiation and persuasion.

In conclusion, there is a patchwork of reasons why the anti-realist might still want to remain consistent in their judgements and actions. I’m not convinced that these reasons are good enough to imply that the anti-realist must always be consistent in every situation, but I think they cover the bulk of cases.

Footnotes: (1)- Obviously, the existence of moral error theory complicates this section, but not in a substantively interesting way, so we’ll brush over it, mutandis mutandis.