Paul asked: Possibly this question is too broad, but what does it mean to say that ethical propositions do not refer in relation to Metaethics. Could you give a concise outline? Answer by Matthew Sims One thing that the claim ethical propositions, such as ‘X is wrong’ do not refer could mean is that the predicate ‘is wrong’ fails denote or pick-out an objective or real quality in the world. Now, in order for this kind of explanation to be of any value at all we must also analyze the notion of objectivity. Let’s for simplicity sake borrow from Michael Dummett’s definition of ‘real’ which crudely put states that something is ontological objective if it is such as to exist independently from our attitudes (our beliefs, thoughts, etc.) and from our theories or methods of verification. When we predicate, say ‘squareness’ to some object, such a property obtaining is not dependent upon our having certain beliefs about ‘squareness’; the quality is such that if some object indeed were square, it’s being so would not be affected by, say, the disappearance of all humans. That just wouldn’t matter. Furthermore, the property of being a shape that has four and only four right angles, could be referred to by some other word besides ‘squareness’ (think of the German ‘viereckig’) and yet this does not prove that such a quality is dependent upon our beliefs or attitudes but only that such an objective property can be referred to by many varying syntactic conventions or symbol constructions. Other properties that are normally not questioned as ‘real’ or ‘objective’ are those which Locke deemed ‘primary’: extension, quantity, shape, motion, and solidity. More controversial are the objectivity of Locke’s secondary qualities: colour, sound, taste, temperature, and smell. So the claim that moral propositions do not refer might be just to say that moral predicates are not made true by objective properties — if truth apt at all. Such a claim immediately could be said to conflict with our intuitions. One may object, ‘It is beyond doubt that the act of burning babies is wrong and anyone who would see such an act would also see the wrongness.’ Is it really the case however that we see the wrongness like we see squareness? One might ask ‘where is the wrongness’ and demand that we point it out to them. In doing so, it seems difficult to discern what the wrongness consists in — particularly if it is to be seen with the eyes or heard with the ears. Is the look upon the offenders face, his ghastly smile or the sound of the screaming infant as it roasts. Would a person born blind never perceive the wrongness of such an act as they never perceive redness? Would they be limited to being informed about the wrongness of such an act? This seems highly unlikely if just not false. The same kind of thought experiment could show that a deaf person (or a person with the bare minimum sensory capacity necessary to detect the occurrence of the action) would nonetheless in this situation ‘sense’ the wrongness. But if this is the case, then wrongness is not seen, heard or sensed in any way similar to other objective properties that we come into contact with. How then is ‘wrongness’ (or rightness for that matter) sensed if not with our sensory organs? Here the moral realist, one who claims that moral properties are objective and that at least some moral propositions are true, faces a problem. If she claims that we have some kind of moral sense organ that is above and beyond our other sensory organs, then seemingly the need to posit such organs for the sake of arguing for the reality of moral properties dulls Ockham’s razor; there are certainly other theories that are available that do not involve positing strange moral sense organs that might explain our attributing moral properties to states of affairs. An epistemological argument very similar in nature was famously put forth by J.L. Mackie as part of his ‘Argument from Queerness’. His argument was in short that in order to become aware of moral properties, if indeed they are like other objective properties, we would need very special sensory organs other than those we do possess. An obvious reply to this is that might run, ‘It was only recently in our history that we’ve come to recognize proprioceptive and kinesthetic functions as kinds of perceptual features that are not tied to particular sensory organs. So why couldn’t there be a moral sensory feature of perception independent of any sensory organ?’ The answer to this is simply that both proprioception and kinesthetics play an independent explanatory role in various theories whereby their existence as perceptual features are justified and coherent with the features provided by particular sensory organs. However the mere hypothesizing of special sensory organs or that sensory organs are unneeded for sensing moral properties to merely justify the reality of moral properties is a move that should be advanced only if there is independent evidence for those objective moral properties other than our intuitions and linguistic habits. Additional to the epistemological tier of Mackie’s Argument from Queerness, is an ontological tier. Given the normative nature of moral claims, if moral properties were objective, then they would have a certain ‘built-in do be pursuedness’ that would necessarily accompany them anytime one would come into contact with such a state of affairs. This kind of moral motivational internalism can be dated back to Plato’s conception of the Form of Goodness. Mackie’s argument runs that it is just not the case that we meet such properties as evidenced by the fact that sometimes people do what they judge to be morally wrong and do not do what they judge to be good. One response to this which has fueled the contemporary debate on the objectivity of moral properties is that the Argument from Queerness as a whole presupposes that moral properties are analogous to primary qualities. This, it is argued by moral realists such as McDowell, can be conceded consistently with holding that moral properties are analogous to secondary properties; properties which are dispositional in nature but which we accept as being objective ontologically. What could such a theory mean by such a claim? In short, dispositional properties — taking the classical example of colour — like ‘redness’ — in order to obtain require appropriately receptive agents and suitable conditions. Where appropriate receptivity can be understood as being physically suited to causally respond to incoming light waves and having the appropriate brain structure (a functioning visual cortex), suitable conditions are often understood as being normal lighting conditions. If these conditions obtain, a dispositional property of some object will cause a response within the agent. This being the case however is not to say that such a property is not objective, but only that it is a kind of conditional property that ‘would cause a reaction’ if the correct conditions obtain. Similarly the realist claims moral properties are like secondary qualities and thus given suitable conditions such as an appropriately receptive agent, such moral properties are features of reality, poised to be recognized. In McDowell’s terminology, such moral properties ‘merit’ certain moral responses if an agent has been raised with certain Aristotelian sensibilities — in a sensitive to the underlying moral structure of reality. As a result of such a theory’s hold that the meriting relation is only partly causal unlike the purely causal relations which hold between non-moral qualities, it avoids having to posit moral sensory organs. Furthermore, such a theory has no problem with the ‘built-in to be pursuedness’ requirement given that dispositional qualities such ‘goodness’ do have such a built-in motivation and if the agent fails to be motivated then it can be said that they fail to be a suitable or appropriately receptive agent and thus are morally degenerate. One thing to ask immediately might be ‘just what is an appropriately receptive agent amount to?’ ‘What differentiates an agent that has an Aristotelian up-bringing from one that doesn’t?’ In answering this, the realist might just again say that such an agent is morally sensitive to certain objective features of reality. But if asked what such features, the realist cannot say that such an agent is sensitive to ‘goodness’ for if she does, her dispositional definition is forced into a circularity; that of defining moral properties as those that agents who are sensitive to moral properties would respond to. And if I am not mistaken, this is just the kind of answer that McDowell gives and thus such an account fails to convince. Now suppose that the realist who does hold that a secondary quality model is the correct account manages to come up with a way of analyzing the dispositionality of moral properties in such a way that avoids circularity. Is there anything else that might dissuade us from accepting that such an analogy is correct? One thing just might be the very phenomenology of moral experience that the realist attempts to use as justification for the intuitiveness of their position. This objection takes the form of a disanalogy; that unlike moral qualities, the objectivity of secondary qualities is supported by the fact that in order to experience them phenomenologically, there is no requirement in terms of having a pre-existing concept of such a quality. Children and even infants after a certain age experience ‘redness’. On the other hand, moral properties seem to require the possession of pre-existing moral concepts before any agent can experience moral properties (or more carefully — begin to attribute moral qualities to states of affairs). Does such a disanalogy entail that moral properties are not real? No! One of the salient points of McDowell’s analysis is that there is a difference between moral and non-moral properties. However, taken together what it does mean is that we must be on our guard for the kind importance we place upon the justificatory power of analogy as a general method for analysis. In other words, one can’t have it both ways — holding that nearness in analogousness justifies something as being objective and at the same time hold that disanalogy doesn’t matter to something’s being justified as objective. If both the secondary quality model and the primary quality model fails, doe this mean that moral predicates do not refer? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that both of these kinds of properties exhaust the kinds of properties that are accepted in physical theories and thus if moral properties are neither then they are not physical properties. No, firstly in that the realist can put up a fight and claim that moral properties are non-physical properties. Such a fight I am convinced is not worth fighting if she cannot additionally provide a plausible theory of how non-physical normative moral properties are casually efficacious upon a physically closed universe. Secondly, the realist rather than claim that moral predicates refer to properties can tell a story about moral objective facts; pointing categorical facts that act as truth makers for moral statements and avoiding outright ontological claims. Whether such a method works is beyond the scope of this answer. However, if you are interested in this approach, one place to look is in R. Joyce’s The Myth of Morality. The title of leaves very little room to guess the position Joyce hold’s on the matter.

A former student of Dr Geoffrey Klempner, Matthew Sims is currently studying for the BA (Hons) in Philosophy with the University of London International Programme. He has a page on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Sims.

Jay asked:

Does a cloned human have soul?

Answer by Geoffrey Klempner

Do souls exist? Do you have a soul? How do you know?

Descartes gave a famous argument for the soul: I know that I would exist, even in a possible world where there is no material objects or space. I ‘see’ my own soul, my own existence, in a way which is totally different from the way I ‘see’ external things. My soul is immediately present to me, in a way which cannot possibly be subject to deceit or illusion.

Descartes ‘knows’ that he has a soul. What would Descartes say about the cloned copy of Descartes? Descartes has a clear answer to this: The behaviour of human beings and non-human animals is fundamentally different in character. Non-human animals are just biological machines. Their behaviour can be fully explained by the activity of neurons, nerves, sinews, muscles. Human beings, by contrast, have the capacity for judgement and choice. This, Descartes believed, requires a non-physical, non-mechanical input: a soul which does the judging and choosing, transmitting its impulses to the physical body through a mind-body bridging mechanism (which for obscure reasons Descartes believed to reside in the pineal gland).

It follows that the cloned copy of Descartes must have a soul. This is assuming that it behaves in the way a human being behaves. If Descartes’ clone can debate philosophy with Descartes, then the two individuals are perfect twins in every respect, physical and non-physical. (How the cloned copy ‘received’ its soul is a mystery that need not delay us.)

Descartes’ model for animal behaviour was clockwork automata, which by this time had reached a remarkable degree of sophistication — for example, lifelike ‘birds’ twittering in cages. Despite this, the materialist Hobbes took a radically different view: we can’t know for sure that the brain does not work in a similar way, if you make the ‘clockwork’ sufficiently complex.

Sound familiar? The very same debate is taking place today, only with the allegedly more fertile model of computers (Turing machines) or neural networks replacing clockwork. One can only guess at the outcome of this ongoing debate.

To cut a long story short: it is logically possible that there is such a thing as a soul, which is required in order to be fully human. A cloned copy of you or me might, or might not have a soul, but there would be, in principle, a way of testing this. Perhaps a soulless ‘zombie’ clone could perform simple mental tasks, but fail at more complex tasks requiring imagination. (There’s a nice illustration of this at the end of the comedy movie Shaun of the Dead (2004) — I don’t want to give away any spoilers.)

However, there is another thought which runs counter to this. Maybe, the debate about computing and consciousness will be resolved in favour of the materialist response. A cloned copy of you or me would be physically identical in every respect, not lacking any mental capacity possessed by the original. What is scary about this is that your best friend could be a soulless zombie and you would never know.

Does that make sense? I am not sure that it does. Let’s say that I believe that there could be, in principle, an indistinguishable cloned copy of me which lacked a soul. For my cloned copy, ‘all is darkness inside’. However, if I believe in the possibility of a soulless cloned copy, then my cloned copy must ‘believe’ this too. That is to say, it must act in every way ‘as if’ it ‘believes’ that it has a soul. What is the evidential basis for this belief? The same as the evidential basis for my belief!

Something very wrong is going on here. Everything I say and do, including all my talk of ‘having a soul’ is fully accounted for at the physical level. That suggests strongly, to me, that such a belief would indeed be illusory.

http://www.philosophypathways.com/vita.html

Catherine asked:

Do philosophers agree on the nature of philosophy?

Answer by Massimo Pigliucci

In a nutshell: yes and no, it depends. It is not easy to catch philosophers on record — especially in peer reviewed publications — freely musing about how to best characterize their own field (then again, how many scientists have you heard lately who give themselves to discussions of the definition of science?). But we live in a world in which even philosophers are getting used to social media, podcasts and blogs, and it turns out that such outlets are friendlier to our quest. So for instance, the journalist Maria Popova[1] collected a variety of responses to the question ‘What is Philosophy?’ from a number of prominent contemporary practitioners, and some of the answers are illuminating.

According to the survey, Marilyn Adams thinks that philosophy is about ‘trying to bring analytic clarity both to the questions and the answers,’ while for Peter Adamson ‘Philosophy is the study of the costs and benefits that accrue when you take up a certain position.’ Richard Bradley says that it is ‘about critical reflection on anything you care to be interested in,’ whereas Allen Buchanan claims that it ‘generally involves being critical and reflective about things that most people take for granted.’

Don Cupitt simply says that philosophy is about critical thinking (an unfortunately much abused term, of late); for Clare Carlisle it is ‘about making sense of all of this [the world and our place in it]’; and Barry Smith agrees, saying that philosophizing is ‘thinking fundamentally clearly and well about the nature of reality and our place in it.’ For Simon Blackburn philosophy is ‘a process of reflection on the deepest concepts,’ something that Tony Coady describes as ‘a science of presuppositions.’

For Donna Dickenson it is about ‘refusing to accept any platitudes or accepted wisdom without examining it’; Luciano Floridi talks about conceptual engineering; and Anthony Kenny refers to ‘thinking as clearly as possible about the most fundamental concepts that reach through all the disciplines.’ For Brian Leiter, arguably the most influential professional philosopher who blogs, a philosopher is someone who ‘creates new ways of evaluating things — what’s important, what’s worthwhile,’ and Alexander Nehemas tells us that he became a philosopher ‘because I wanted to be able to talk about many, many things, ideally with knowledge, but sometimes not quite the amount of knowledge that I would need if I were to be a specialist in them.’

For David Papineau philosophy ‘requires an untangling of presuppositions: figuring out that our thinking is being driven by ideas we didn’t even realize that we had,’ while Janet Radcliffe Richards regards ‘philosophy as a mode of enquiry rather than a particular set of subjects… involving the kind of questions where you are not trying to find… whether your ideas are true or not, in the way that science is doing, but more about how your ideas hang together.’

Michael Sandel opines that philosophizing means ‘reflecting critically on the way things are. That includes reflecting critically on social and political and economic arrangements. It always intimates the possibility that things could be other than they are,’ and finally Jonathan Wolff identifies philosophical problems as those that ‘arise… where two common-sense notions push in different directions, and then philosophy gets started.’

(I purposely left out uninformative or purely poetic concepts of philosophy from the Popova survey, such as ‘Philosophy is the successful love of thinking,’ or ‘When nobody asks me about it, I know. But whenever somebody asks me about what the concept of time is, I realize I don’t know,’ for which — I have to admit — I have little patience.)

As for myself, I tend to think of ‘philosophy’ as a type of thinking activity based on discursive rationality and argumentation (DRA, for short). DRA-style philosophy has been a major (though not the only) mode of philosophizing in the West since the pre-Socratics, and it is definitely common in non-Western traditions as well, for instance in the case of the history of Indian logic and of a number of Buddhist schools of thought as exemplified by the work of Nagarjuna.

Why would I want to limit ‘philosophy’ to the practice of DRA? For two reasons, one historical, the other pragmatic.

Historically, as is well known, the term ‘philosophy’ comes from a Greek root meaning ‘love of wisdom,’ and the associated practice has been — largely — one exemplifying DRA. So DRA-style philosophy broadly construed (i.e., not only in the narrower sense of the modern so-called ‘analytic’ tradition) can claim historical precedence on any other type of human activity that people may wish to characterize as philosophy.

Pragmatically, it seems to me that it helps no one, and in fact only increases the general confusion, if we use the same term for what are manifestly very different kinds of activities. So, for instance, if you are invoking mystical insights, as some philosophical traditions from both the East and the West do, then you are not doing philosophy, but rather something else (mysticism, to be precise). Similarly, if your writings contain arguments that are not backed up by logical discourse but, say, by appeal to emotional responses, then you are doing something else (literature, essayism, or other things, depending on the specific cases). Again, examples can be found both within and without the Western tradition.

All of that said, I’m sure other philosophers will disagree…

___

1. Popova, M. (2012) What is Philosophy? An Omnibus of Definitions from Prominent Philosophers. http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/09/what-is-philosophy/

Prof Massimo Pigliucci Graduate Center & Lehman College City University of New York http://platofootnote.org

Catherine asked:

Is an act morally good because God approves of it or God approves of it because it is morally good?

Answer by Craig Skinner

This question is often called the Euthyphro dilemma because it is posed by Socrates in Plato’s dialogue ‘Euthyphro’ (10 a) as ‘is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods ?’

It is a dilemma for those holding a divine-command view of morality, because neither option in the question seems acceptable. Thus:

* if we say an act is morally good because God approves, this makes morality arbitrary – anything God approved of, however horrible, would automatically becomes good.

* if we say God approves of an act because it’s morally good, this makes God redundant: if the act is morally good, we can commend it ourselves for moral reasons, just as God does.

In short, either morality is arbitrary or God is redundant.

Most secular philosophers, and some theists, accept that morality is not arbitrary, rather that God is redundant.

But Christian philosophers don’t accept the dilemma, arguing that morality is not arbitrary and that God is not redundant.

Here’s how.

Morality not arbitrary: it is God’s nature to approve of only good things, never bad things. So the idea that God might approve of, say, torturing children for fun (well, our enemies’ children at any rate), so that such action becomes ‘good’, shows misunderstanding of God as the source of all goodness. So it is true that acts are morally good because God approves of them – he only approves of the good.

God not redundant: approval by God makes an act obligatory not just good. Many acts are good but not obligatory. For example it would be good of me to visit an acquaintance tomorrow in hospital (a kind act) but it is not morally obligatory for me to do so.

But Christians regard God’s commands as not just acts it would be good for us to do (and OK if we don’t), but rather as acts we are obliged to do. For example, Jesus’ command to his disciples to ‘love one another as I have loved you’, is not just recommending that loving one another is good, and an option they should try from time to time, but an obligation central to how they, and all humans, should live. Divine command, by a good and loving God, gives an act added value over and above its intrinsic goodness, so that God is far from redundant.

Naturally these arguments cut no ice for those who don’t accept the assumed theistic teleological structure and its vision of the ultimate good of human life. For atheists, the question of what the gods approve of and why doesn’t arise; the ‘dilemma’ is taken to simply show that morality doesn’t require any god as guarantor.

Craig Skinner at philosophos.org

Danish asked:

What if religion disappears today? What be the implication

2. Ethics/ Morality-Will then every legitimate/ legal action then have an inbuilt moral and ethical qualifier holding near to negligible intrinsic value? Will not anything intrinsic then be seen with a prism of hedonism? Will then incest be acceptable if agreed upon barring/ controlling biological complication resulting from it. In sum, any desire agreed upon and legitimized by state will then be deemed acceptable and moral.

Answer by Stuart Burns

It is clearly not the case that religion plays a major part in holding in check the majority and protecting the minority. History clearly shows that religion plays a major part in rationalizing the majority’s suppression of and discrimination against the minority. The minority, after all are heretics and non-believers. And as such, as is clearly stated in, for example the Koran, are subject to severe penalties. Religion is indeed a bedrock of group identity — hence the prevalence of discrimination against those not part of the group. But religion is not the bedrock of moral or legal principles.

Plato’s Euthyphro Dialogue documents what is called the Euthyphro Dilemma. In modern parlance, it can be stated as the question — ‘Is what God commands good because he commands it, or does God command what is good?’ The first option makes God’s command arbitrary and capricious. The second option accepts that there is a standard of moral goodness independent of God’s commands. The first option makes a sham of moral principles. The second option renders religious morality irrelevant.

If religion disappears today, it would obviously be because it is replaced with a non-religious moral system. It could not disappear without such a replacement. Firstly, because it would not disappear on its own. It would have to disappear because it is replaced with something that serves its function more successfully. And secondly, even if it did disappear on its own for some odd reason, it would have to be quickly replaced with a moral system that provides legitimating authority to legal rules and social etiquette. Fortunately, there are plenty of candidates waiting in the wings offering something better than religion, and promising more rational and scientific basis for the authority of laws and social rules.

I think the biggest problem, if religion were to disappear overnight, would be what to do with all the now unemployed religious workers. But that would be only a temporary problem. Religions, after all, are the least productive industry we have. Surely most of those ‘interpreters of God’s will’ will find more socially productive work in other vocations.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/saburns/pg00cv.htm

Steven asked:

How did Socrates know he was wise?

Answer by Graham Hackett

The words of the Oracle are actually in the negative. ‘Is anyone wiser than Socrates?’ was the question asked. The priestess answered, ‘No one’. So not only was Socrates declared wise, but in fact he was declared the wisest man in Athens. I recommend that you the answer by Tony Fahey, Socrates and the Oracle of Delphi. There you will find a good account of the pronouncement of the Oracle and Socrates’ use of it in his own defence before his Athenian accusers. I cannot do better than this article, so I will add just a few remarks of my own.

The difficulties in answering your question stem partly from our lack of direct knowledge of Socrates own life (how much of the account we have is due to Plato’s own views or genuinely objective, etc), and partly what we take to be the meaning of wisdom. Wisdom could refer to the possession of genuine higher level knowledge of such difficult key concepts as virtue, good, happiness, piety, justice etc. A key Greek word here is ‘Sophos’. This term used in pre-Socratic Greece refers to something like a sage, wise man something like a combined prophet, priest and therapist. The Sophos were interested in rational argument for proof of concepts in ethics and metaphysics. Sophos in this sense were not ‘professional thinkers’, such as were the Sophists active in the lifetime of Socrates .

What would Socrates have understood the Delphic Oracle to be saying about wisdom, and if so, would he have a convincing reason for his particular belief? Well, as is reported, he seems to have expressed puzzlement with the oracular pronouncement, regarding it as paradoxical. According to mainstream Greek thinking before Socrates, a truly wise man would have definitive knowledge, maybe, like Thales, Heraclitus and Pythagoras, even have constructed systems of knowledge. Socrates denied that he had this kind of knowledge and he was certainly not a system builder. In fact, he rather famously claimed ignorance, so how could he be the wisest man in Athens?

In support of this claim of lack of knowledge, Socrates, at least in the earlier Platonic dialogues used the method of elenchus, which proceeded as follows;

1. Socrates’ interlocutor asserts a thesis, e.g. ‘piety is doing according to the will of the Gods’, which Socrates questions.

2. Socrates secures his interlocutor’s agreement to other premises, e.g.; ‘what the Gods ask is pious’ or ‘the Gods may ask contradictory things.

3. Socrates then argues, with the interlocutor’s agreement, that these further premises imply the contrary of the original thesis.

4. Socrates then claims this shows that his interlocutor’s thesis is false and that its negation is true.

What seems to be the point behind the Oracle story is this; the claims of many to be wise (to possess knowledge) is wrong. Socrates use of the technique of the elenchus demonstrates this. His assumption of ignorance, and then gradually refining an initially unacceptable position in the direction of knowledge at least could be described as the beginning of wisdom. If you accept this interpretation of the Oracle, then you may judge that Socrates has some justification to believe he wise. You may have read Platonic dialogues where a final definitive position is never reached. For example, in the ‘Theaetetus’, Socrates attempts to get at the nature of knowledge, but the dialogue seems to end unsatisfactorily with no final acceptable conclusion. Should we regard this as a futile failure? Not a bit of it! Even if the characters in the dialogue never reach a final definitive position on the nature of knowledge, Socrates would no doubt take heart in having moved the search further onward.

Perhaps it is not too fanciful to suggest that there was shift in how we view wisdom at the time of Socrates. Today, philosophers are less viewed as having wisdom in the ancient sage-like sense and seen more as those who love and seek wisdom. Knowledge is not a final position; it is an ongoing search.

Wisdom is also often used as referring to a more practical prudential knowledge. Socrates and Plato seem to have regarded this as a lower form of knowledge; an art, or a skill; how to build a boat, how to conduct oneself in the public arena etc. Aristotle held prudential wisdom in higher regard (it was referred to by the Greeks as phronesis). You may argue that considering his own wilful neglect of Athenian public life and his ability to irritate important citizens, Socrates could have used a lot more of this form of wisdom. It is a pity that the Oracle did not warn Socrates of his dangerous lack of this kind of practical knowledge, by providing more detail in their pronouncements. But then the Oracle never had the virtue of clarity.

Graham Hackett is currently studying for the BA (Hons) in Philosophy with the University of London International Programme. He is a former student of Dr Geoffrey Klempner.