I wanted here to provide a brief addendum to my earlier pro-objectivist ethical viewpoints, through an outline of G.E.Moore’s ideas in the Principia Ethica.

Clearly there is a seeming difficulty in justifying my Wittgensteinian logical positivism and my appeals to objectivity. On the one hand with Wittgenstein I am arguing that metaphysical statements are nonsensical, on the otherhand I am claiming that just as there are analytic truths in logic and language so too there are objective values. Wittgensteins response would be to look at language games or perhaps even refer to the mystical, but I have in our discussions attempted to be a little more clearer about it.

The motif of inconvenience and incoherence in subjectivising Objectivity

Through the concepts of inconvenience and incoherence I have attempted to explain how subjectivism and relativistic morality came about. That they are interpretations, possibly even misinterpretations based upon an original objective value, wherein for reasons of convenience and coherence a new terminology has been substituted for the older one.

So for example pro-abortionists have justified their arguments by removing from the debate concepts concerning the ‘life’ of the fetus, and the ‘value’ of that ‘life’. As the idea that the fetus may be ‘alive’ and ‘fully human’ is inconvenient to those who would argue for abortion. Furthermore they may also argue that notions such as the ‘sanctity of life’, or the ‘soul’ and so on are incoherent, thus pro-abortionists talk of life as if it were a ladder with different levels of achievement, as though a fetus is somewhat less-alive than a new born baby.

But convenience and coherence are not always negative ethical motifs. If it could be demonstrated that in the history of human actions that a common action took place that was eventually discarded, I could then begin to use the motifs of convenience and coherence in a positive fashion. For example our evolving enlightenment concerning the different races and genders, have taken place because previously held values have become inconvenient and incoherent.

So there is in the history of normative ethics a twofold movement around objectivism. A negative reinterpretation where a Objective value is discarded or modified into a subjective and relative one. And vice versa, where a seemingly objective value (i.e. the primacy of the male) is rejected thanks to a more holistic understanding of ourselves.

Avoiding Logical Positivism

In investigating the meanings of the words involved in ethical statements I have become involved in a form of analytical philosophy. Also in providing a broad picture of the development of moral statements I have been engaging in descriptive ethics. I have therefore been sailing pretty close to Logical Positivism, a school of Philosophy that was influenced (not entirely to his satisfaction) by Wittgenstein among many others.

Logical Positivism suggests that language is descriptive and that its meaning is only justifiable with reference to evidence of those things it purports to describe. Ethical statements of course cannot be examined in this way, just like metaphysical statements about God. Logical Positivists describe these as meaningless statements. Although Wittgenstein as we have already seen did not, he defined them as non-sense, as belonging to a different language or sphere of knowledge. Unlike the Logical Positivists he was not content with discarding them to the dustbin as non-existent.

So if ethical statements (Wittgenstein aside) are meaningless, and are unable to give a picture of values and obligations as these are not objects that can be described, what could ethical statements do?

There are two answers generally posited. Ethical statements are either emotivist or prescriptive. An emotivist ethical statement was just a statement about how one felt about something. Something was good or bad, because you liked or disliked it. A prescriptive ethical statement on the contrary was like a recommendation of what one ought to do. Therefore when something is described as being wrong in ethics, what was really being said was ‘don’t do that’.

Both of these are attempts to escape the ought/is problem. Neither of them attempt to tell you what the case is, but express what we would like. Thus it was believed that the approach of natural theology had been avoided. A natural theology pointing to a series of facts in the world would attempt to make a statement about what is; i.e. it is wrong to commit X because it is contrary to the natural order that God has created.

But the problem with emotive and prescriptive ethical statements is that they both depend upon the addition of the term or concept because. I would like- because, or Don’t do that- because.

Once you get to because you return to descriptions and attempted references to facts. Take for example Utilitarian ethics, both – I would like, and – don’t do that, gain there force from the addition of because it will cause greater/less happiness/pleasure/pain.

Intuitionism: another way out

G E Moore in Principia Ethica argues that goodness cannot be defined, because it is quite unlike any other quality. Goodness is something you know by intuition not by deductive reasoning. When someone attempts to engage in such reasoning then one is commiting the Naturalistic Fallacy.

That “pleased” does not mean “having the sensation of red”, or anything else whatever, does not prevent us from understanding what it does mean. It is enough for us to know that “pleased” does mean “having the sensation of pleasure”, and though pleasure is absolutely indefinable, though pleasure is pleasure and nothing else whatever, yet we feel no difficulty in saying that we are pleased. The reason is, of course, that when I say “I am pleased”, I do not mean that “I” am the same thing as “having pleasure”. And similarly no difficulty need be found in my saying that “pleasure is good” and yet not meaning that “pleasure” is the same thing as “good”, that pleasure means good, and that good means pleasure. If I were to imagine that when I said “I am pleased”, I meant that I was exactly the same thing as “pleased”, I should not indeed call that a naturalistic fallacy, although it would be the same fallacy as I have called naturalistic with reference to Ethics. PE #12

Moore’s analogy of colour is quite a good one to explain the naturalistic fallacy. You cannot describe what yellow is, you just need to point at it and say ‘that’s what I mean by yellow’. In the same way we cannot express the meaning of goodness by trying to define it, or to reduce it to its constituent parts, you simply point to it, for goodness is exactly what it is. This is known as the theory of intuitionism and it is an approach that does not deny the reality of goodness (or of God) any more than it denies the reality of ‘yellow’, but it says that these things can only be known by intuition. It probably goes without saying that Wittgenstein was heavily influenced by Moore, and knowing this we can get a better idea of what is meant by the mystical. And how I can attempt to propose Objective moral truths without having necessary recourse to a divine lawmaker (although similarly without denying the possibility of the divine, which is a different matter entirely).