Transcript Hume`s empiricism and metaethics

Hume’s
empiricism and
metaethics
Michael Lacewing
Hume’s fork
• We can only have
knowledge of
– Relations of ideas
– Matters of fact
• Relations of ideas are a
priori and analytic
• Matters of fact are a
posteriori and synthetic
The options
• For any field of knowledge, Hume has
three options:
– to say that any knowledge we do have is
based on experience
– to say that any knowledge we have is
trivial (analytic, true by definition)
– to deny that we have any knowledge in
that area.
Is morality about relations of
ideas?
• Can any relation of ideas be distinctive of
morality (i.e. apply only in moral judgments)?
• E.g. Killing: not with plants
– Wilful killing: “a will does not give rise to any
different relations, but is only the cause from
which the action is deriv’d” (Treatise, 519)
• Relations of ideas work with deductions and
proof – doesn’t seem right model for moral
reasoning
– Kant?
Is morality about matters of
fact?
• Which facts, e.g. in wilful murder, are
moral facts?
– “you will find only certain passions, motives,
volitions, and thoughts… The vice entirely
escapes you, as long as you consider the
object. You never can find it, till you turn
your reflection into your own breast, and find
a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises
in you, towards this action. Here is a matter
of fact; but ‘tis the object of feeling, not of
reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object.”
(520)
Drawing moral inferences
• “In the disquisitions of the understanding,
from known circumstances and relations, we
infer some new and unknown. In moral
decisions, all the circumstances and relations
must be previously known; and the mind, from
contemplation of the whole, feels some new
impression of affection or disgust, esteem or
contempt, approbation or blame. Hence the
great difference between a mistake of fact
and one of right” (Enquiry concerning the
Principles of Morals, 290)
The is-ought gap
• Matters of fact do not entail moral
judgments:
– ‘this ought…expresses some new relation [of which it]
seems altogether inconceivable, how this new
relation can be a deduction from others, which are
entirely different from it’. (Treatise, 521)
• To move from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ is only possible
through the interposition of a feeling or
preference.
• Explanation: morality is not a matter of fact,
but of attitude/feeling.
Moral knowledge?
• Moral judgments don’t express truth
claims.
– Sentences such as ‘abortion is wrong’
don’t state propositions (which can be
true or false), they express attitudes.
• So, there can be no moral knowledge
because there are no moral facts that
we can know or not know.
Universal morality
• Hume is not a subjectivist.
• The feeling/attitude morality
expresses is the same for all of us,
because of human nature.
• Morality rests on our responses of
sympathy.
– This can’t be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, but we
tend to react the same, and reasoning can
clarify our feelings.
Moral reasoning
• But when justifying a moral claim…
– E.g. Eating meat is wrong
• …we appeal to natural facts
– E.g. Animals suffer.
• Moral reason: a reason for someone to do
something
– E.g. That animals suffer is a reason for you to not
eat meat.
• That some fact is a moral reason is a
relational property.
Moral truth
• Whether some fact is a reason is objectively
true or false.
– Epistemic reasons: Radiometric decay indicates
that the some dinosaur bones are 65 million years
old. This is (objectively) a reason to believe that
dinosaurs lived on Earth 65 million years ago.
• Facts about reasons are normative facts.
Moral truth
• To say that something is wrong is to say that
the moral reasons against doing it are
stronger than any moral reason in favour of
doing it.
• The judgment, ‘x is wrong’, is objectively
true or false.
• Hume is right that natural facts do not
establish moral truths. We must also
consider the normative facts.
Are moral reasons
objective?
• But are there truths about moral reasons,
independent of people?
• Hume would argue that moral reasons are
relative to individuals – whether the fact
that animals suffer is a reason for me not to
eat meat depends on whether I care
– Because sympathy is universal, then we all care
about many similar things