В духе Дэвидсона.

Various objectivist responses may be made to this argument. One is the Davidsonian approach, already considered, that precludes the possibility of incommensurable moral frameworks. Another response is that incommensurability does not preclude the possibility of rationally resolving differences between moral frameworks. For example, Alasdair MacIntyre (1988: ch. 18 and 1994) has argued that, in some circumstances, it is possible to realize, through an exercise in imagination, that a conflicting and incommensurable moral tradition is rationally superior to one's own tradition.

 

Чаще всего объективисты утверждают, что некая конкретная этическая система с рациональной точки зрения превосходит все остальные. Так, например, следуя за Кантом, можно сказать, что из чистого практического разума следует фундаментальный этический принцип – это категорический императив; по Аристотелю, человеческая природа такова, что реализация таких человеческих качеств, как храбрость, умеренность и справедливость являются необходимым условием возможности помыслить хорошую жизнь.

 

Proponents of MMR are unimpressed by these responses.

 

They may say that the Davidsonian account cannot assure sufficient common ground to resolve conflicts between moral frameworks (or to ensure that there is really only one framework), and that MacIntyre's approach is likely to work at best only in some cases. And they usually consider debates about the Kantian and Aristotelian arguments to be as difficult to resolve rationally as the conflicts between moral frameworks the relativists originally invoked. They may add that the fact that moral objectivists disagree among themselves about which objectivist theory is correct is further indication of the difficulty of resolving fundamental moral conflicts.

A rather different objectivist challenge is that the position of the proponent of MMR is inconsistent. The relativist argument is that we should reject moral objectivism because there is little prospect of rationally resolving fundamental moral disagreements. However, it may be pointed out, the relativist should acknowledge that there is no more prospect of rationally resolving disagreements about MMR. By parity of reasoning, he or she should grant that there is no objective truth concerning MMR.

To this familiar kind of objection, there are two equally familiar responses. One is to concede the objection and maintain that MMR is true and justified in some metaethical frameworks, but not others: It is not an objective truth that any reasonable and well-informed person has reason to accept. This may seem to concede a great deal, but for someone who is a relativist through and through, or at least is a relativist about metaethical claims, this would be the only option.

The other response is to contest the claim that there is parity of reasoning in the two cases. This would require showing that the dispute about the irresolvability of moral disagreements (a metaethical debate) can be rationally resolved in a way that fundamental moral disagreements (substantive normative debates) themselves cannot. For example, the metaethical debate might be rationally resolved in favor of the relativist, while the substantive normative debates cannot be resolved.

МЭР

Однако даже если мы действительно установим, что имеющие этические разногласия нельзя решить на рациональных основаниях, и что они преобладают над согласием, из этого еще не следует непосредственно, что МЭР истинен.

 

Возможны другие необъективистские выводы. В частности, противники объективизма могут отстаивать этический скептицизм.

Так что МЭР противопоставляется двум обширным лагерям, этических объективистов - реалистов, и разнообразным видам необъективистов.

 

С какими серьезными возражениями сталкивается сторонник МЭР?

 

 

It might be thought that MMR, with respect to truth-value, would have the result that a moral judgment such as “suicide is morally right” (S) could be both true and false —true when valid for one group and false when invalid for another. But this appears to be an untenable position: Nothing can be both true and false. Of course, some persons could be justified in affirming S and other persons justified in denying it, since the two groups could have different evidence. But it is another matter to say S is both true and false.

The standard relativist response is to say that moral truth is relative in some sense. On this view, S is not true or false absolutely speaking, but it may be true-relative-to- X and false-relative-to- Y (where X and Y refer to different societies or moral frameworks, and their respective standards). This means that suicide is right for persons in X, but it is not right for persons in Y; and, the relativist may contend, there is no inconsistency in this conjunction properly understood.

Once this position is taken, another objection arises.

 

Relativism usually presents itself as an interpretation of moral disagreements: It is said to be the best explanation of rationally irresolvable moral disagreements.

 

However, once moral truth is regarded as relative, the disagreements seem to disappear.

For example, someone in X who affirms S is saying suicide is right for persons in X, while someone in Y who denies S is saying suicide is not right for persons in Y. It might well be that they are both correct and hence that they are not disagreeing with one another (rather as two people in different places might both be correct when one says the sun is shining and the other says it is not, or as two people in different countries may both be correct when one says something is illegal and the other says it is not).

The relativist explanation dissolves the disagreement. But, then, why did it appear as a disagreement in the first place?

 

An objectivist might say this is because people assume that moral truth is absolute rather than relative.

If this were correct, the relativist could not maintain that MMR captures what people already believe. The contention would have to be that they should believe it, and the argument for relativism would have to be formulated in those terms. For example, the relativist might contend that MMR is the most plausible position to adopt insofar as moral judgments often give practically conflicting directives and neither judgment can be shown to be rationally superior to the other.

A common objection, though probably more so outside philosophy than within it, is that MMR cannot account for the fact that some practices such as the holocaust in Germany or slavery in the United States are obviously objectively wrong.

This point is usually expressed in a tone of outrage, often with the suggestion that relativists pose a threat to civilized society (or something of this sort). Proponents of MMR might respond that this simply begs the question, and in one sense they are right.

However, this objection might reflect a more sophisticated epistemology, for example, that we have more reason to accept these objectivist intuitions than we have to accept any argument put forward in favor of MMR.

 

This would bring us back to the arguments of the last section. Another relativist response would be to say that the practices in question, though widely accepted, were wrong according to the fundamental standards of the societies. This would not show that the practices are objectively wrong, but it might mitigate the force of the critique. However, though this response may be plausible in some cases, it is not obvious that it always would be convincing.

This last response brings out the fact that the proponent of MMR needs an account of relative truth.

To say that S is true-relative-to- X presumably means more than that the people in X accept S.

 

For example, we ordinarily suppose that truths can be undiscovered or that people can make mistakes about them.

As just noted, a moral relativist could make sense of this by supposing that a set of fundamental standards are authoritative for people in X: What is morally true-relative-to- X is whatever these standards would actually warrant. By this criterion, there could be moral truths that are unknown to people in X, or they could be mistaken in thinking something is a moral truth. On this approach, however, an explanation is needed of why some standards are authoritative for people in a society.

A similar point arises from the fact that it is sometimes thought to be an advantage of MMR that it maintains a substantial notion of intersubjective truth or justification: It avoids the defects of moral objectivism, on the one hand, and of moral skepticism and theories that disregard moral truth-value altogether, on the other hand, because it maintains that moral judgments do not have truth in an absolute sense, but they do have truth relative to a society (and similarly for justification).

This is thought to be an advantage because, notwithstanding the supposed difficulties with moral objectivism, morality is widely regarded as “not merely subjective,” and MMR can capture this.

 

However, this purported advantage raises an important question for relativism: Why suppose moral judgments have truth-value relative to a society as opposed to no truth-value at all? If the relativist claims that a set of fundamental standards is authoritative for persons in a society, it may be asked why they have this authority. This question may arise in quite practical ways.

For example, suppose a dissident challenges some of the fundamental standards of his or her society. Is this person necessarily wrong?

Various answers may be given to these questions. For example, it may be said that the standards that are authoritative in a society are those that reasonable and well-informed members of the society would generally accept. This might seem to provide a basis for normative authority. However, if this approach were taken, it may be asked why that authority rests only on reasonable and well-informed members of the society. Why not a wider group? Why not all reasonable and well-informed persons?

A different response would be to say that the standards that are authoritative for a society are the ones persons have agreed to follow as a result of some negotiation or bargaining process (as seen above, Harman has argued that we should understand some moral judgments in these terms). Once again, this might seem to lend those standards some authority. Still, it may be asked whether they really have authority or perhaps whether they have the right kind. For example, suppose the agreement had been reached in circumstances in which a few members of society held great power over the others (in the real world, the most likely scenario). Those with less power might have been prudent to make the agreement, but it is not obvious that such an agreement would create genuine normative authority —a point the dissident challenging the standards might well make. Moreover, if all moral values are understood in this way, how do we explain the authority of the contention that people should follow a set of values because they agreed to do so? Must there be a prior agreement to do what we agree to do?

A related objection concerns the specification of the society to which moral justification or truth are said to be relative. People typically belong to many different groups defined by various criteria: culture, religion, political territory, ethnicity, race, gender, etc.

Moreover, while it is sometimes claimed that the values of a group defined by one of these criteria have authority for members of the group, such claims are often challenged. The specification of the relevant group is itself a morally significant question, and there appears to be no objective map of the world that displays its division into social groups to which the truth or justification of moral judgments are relative. A proponent of MMR needs a plausible way of identifying the group of persons to which moral truth or justification are relative.

Moreover, not only do people typically belong to more than one group, as defined by the aforementioned criteria, the values that are authoritative in each group a person belongs to may not always be the same.

If I belong to a religion and a nationality, and their values concerning abortion are diametrically opposed, then which value is correct for me?

This raises the question whether there is a basis for resolving the conflict consistent with MMR (the two groups might have conflicting fundamental standards) and whether in this circumstance MMR would entail that there is a genuine moral dilemma (meaning that abortion is both right and wrong for me). This point is not necessarily an objection, but a defender of MMR would have to confront these issues and develop a convincing position concerning them.

The fact that social groups are defined by different criteria, and that persons commonly belong to more than one social group, might be taken as a reason to move from relativism to a form of subjectivism.

 

That is, instead of saying that the truth or justification of moral judgments is relative to a group, we should say it is relative to each individual (as noted above, relativism is sometimes defined to include both positions).

 

This revision might defuse the issues just discussed, but it would abandon the notion of intersubjectivity with respect to truth or justification —what for many proponents of MMR is a chief advantage of the position. Moreover, a proponent of this subjectivist account would need to explain in what sense, if any, moral values have normative authority for a person as opposed to simply being accepted.

The fact that we sometimes think our moral values have been mistaken is often thought to imply that we believe they have some authority that does not consist in the mere fact that we accept them.

Another set of concerns arises from purported facts about similarities and interactions across different societies vis-a-vis morality. People in one society sometimes make moral judgments about people in another society on the basis of moral standards they take to be authoritative for both societies. In addition, conflicts between societies are sometimes resolved because one society changes its moral outlook and comes to share at least some of the moral values of the other society. More generally, sometimes people in one society think they learn from the moral values of another society: They come to believe that the moral values of another society are better in some respects than their own (previously accepted) values. The Mondrian image of a world divided into distinct societies, each with it own distinctive moral values, makes it difficult to account for these considerations. If this image is abandoned as unrealistic, and is replaced by one that acknowledges greater moral overlap and interaction among societies (recall the Pollock image), then the proponent of MMR needs to give a plausible account of these dynamics. This is related to the problem of authority raised earlier: These considerations suggest that people sometimes acknowledge moral authority that extends beyond their own society, and a relativist needs to show why this makes sense or why people are mistaken in this acknowledgement.