More on Morals

Earlier I argued that our intuitive apprehension of certain moral principles justified us in adhering to a form of moral realism. I maintained that most people would assent to certain moral truisms, and that these judgments are independent, epistemologically speaking, of whatever theory about the nature of morality we happen to hold. In other words, my view is that first-order moral judgments don’t necessarily require backing from some second-order theory in order to be justified. Moral realism should be our default position, barring overwhelming reason to reject it. The burden of proof lies on those who would have us overturn our practice of making moral judgments, just as the burden of proof would lie on someone asking us to give up making perceptual judgments.

This position might appear at first to commit us to an extreme moral conservatism. If we take our unreflective first-order moral judgments as given, how can we make moral progress? But this worry comes from confusing first-order judgments with second-order theorizing. I can make adjustments in my first-order moral judgments independently of whatever ethical theory (if any) I might hold. Suppose I believe (as I do) that it’s (prima facie at least) wrong to take an innocent human life. Now suppose I become convinced that a fetus counts as an innocent human life. I will then draw the conclusion that abortion is wrong. All of this moral reflection can take place regardless of whether I take my moral principles as expressing a universal duty, the good of the greatest number, the will of God, or whatever.

Moreover, we should be aware of the fact that often in debates about morality, it’s not general moral principles that are being contested. In the debate about abortion, for example, nearly all parties accept the principle that it’s wrong to take an innocent human life. The debate usually revolves around whether a fetus counts as an innocent human life in the relevant sense. So, a judgment like “abortion is murder” is derivative of some more general moral principle along with certain other premises about the status of the fetus.

So, the position sketched is “conservative” only in the sense of claiming that there are certain unchanging universal moral principles. But it still allows for moral development and self-criticism, and may, in fact, lead us to quite radical positions. For instance, as the late James Rachels said in arguing for vegetarianism, “The rule against causing unnecessary pain is the least eccentric of all moral principles, and that rule leads straight to the conclusion that we should abandon the business of meat production and adopt alternative diets. Considered in this light, vegetarianism may be thought of as a severely conservative moral stance.”