Contra Consequentialismum: There Ain't No Such Thing as Absolutes

WE NOW REACH THE HEART OF DAVID ODERBERG'S BOOK Moral Theory: A Non-Consequentialist Approach: his criticism of the majority theory in the West: consequentialism. In getting to this point, Oderberg discussed the notion of rights, and how they relate back to obligations (duties) and eventually to law, a law that pre-exists man, and which he discovers, but does not make. Though some rights may be based upon custom, the foundation of rights is not custom. Though some rights may be based upon contract, the foundation of rights is not contract. Though some rights may be held by the common consent or opinion of men, the foundation of rights is not opinion. The fact that customary or contractual or deeply felt rights exist does not impugn the fact that rights, in their most fundamental sense, are not customary, conventional, or emotional, but go beyond such relative bases and reach backward to a pre-existing, given reality of good and right, an objective order, the compliance with which human happiness depends. Any moral theorist who builds the foundation of his ethics on something other than natural law will always come to a failure of his theory as it collapses to relativism.

The fact is any objective moral order requires that a moral order pre-exist us. We have to be blind to miss the pre-existing, objective order. The Schleiermarcherian notion of Sichselbstnichtsogesetzthaben, "not-having-posited oneself," and of Irgendwiegewordensein, a "somehow-having-come-to-be," which cannot be gainsaid, compel us to face the objective fact that there is an objective reality, including a reality of right and wrong, of which we are not master, but which we have been given by Another, namely God, and which we discover, not make.*

What about the consequentialist's or utilitarian's efforts to describe morality?** Are they an exception to the rule? Can they escape the ineluctable conclusion that morality is not made by man, but is given us by our Creator?

David S. Oderberg

The consequentialist theories of morality are, ultimately, incompatible with a notion of natural right.

According to consequentialism, the criterion of rightness and wrongness of actions is whether they maximize good consequences. What are those good consequences? This is one of the first matters on which consquentialists differ.

Oderberg, 66. Many competitors vie for first place among the consequentialist theories for what ought to be the measure to be maximized: pleasure, the satisfaction of people's interests, some plurality or ensemble of goods that aggregately measure "well-being" are frequent suggestions. Consequentialists seem hopefully divided. Whatever that one measure is--take your pick--the analysis of consequentialism's defect is the same. Call that measure "X" and the consequentialist's goal to maximize X.

Consequentialists are also divided into "act" consequentialists (where and individual act is analyzed to see if it maximizes X) versus "rule" consequentialists (where a rule of action, and not the individual act itself, is analyzed to see if it maximizes X).

Regardless of the particular color and stripes of the theory, consequentialists are dedicated to a number of propositions, one of which may called the calculative principle, and the other which may be called the impersonality or agent-neutrality principle.

First, the calculative principle proposed by consequentialism asserts that "it is possible," in fact it is always possible, "to evaluate states of the world in terms of the goodness of the consequences present in those states as a result of actions." Oderberg, 67. The consequentialist is therefore committed to the ability to calculate of consequences caused by an act or rule, and hence the calculations that are determinant of an act's goodness are always possible. "Whether a crude numerical approach is used, or an intuitive one, or something in between, the consequentialist is committed to the idea that everything can be compared with everything else, in order to arrive at a judgment of what action is X-maximizing in the circumstances." Goods are therefore commensurable. Both this calculative aspect, and the necessary corollary of the commensurability of goods, is problematic.

Second, the impersonal or agent-neutrality feature is that consequentialists all believe that "[e]very moral agent's overarching rational duty is to maximize X." Oderberg, 67. "It can never be the case that an agent is placed in a situation in which he has a specific duty that is incompatible with this maximization." Oderberg, 68. In short, an agent has a duty always to do good, as good is defined by the consequentialists (maximizing X, whatever X may be), all else be damned. In this regard, consequentialists all seem to suffer from an overdeveloped sense of duty and hence a sort of moral neurosis follows. They are burdened with a millstone caused by the banishment of intent from the moral equation. All is outside in this theory; nothing is inside in this theory. It is hideously inhuman, and in fact leads to the justification of the most immoral behavior. Invariably, as a result of his false theory of morality, a consequentialist will turn into a neurotic whitened sepulcher, complete with the unattended inside full of a rotten corpse and black heart. The moral neurosis arises from what is an impossible proposition, and that is that one's intent makes utterly no difference in the moral calculus that determines right or wrong:

[I]t does not matter for the morality [of a person's] action how [he] fails to maximize X in a given situation: he may deliberately choose an act that is sub-optimal (less-than-X-maximizing), or he may simply refrain from performing the act that is optimal (X-maximizing), with the result that, in one way or another, a sub-optimal state of the world eventuates; either way, he is equally guilty of immorality.

Oderberg, 67. Here is consequentialism's viciousness, here is its demonic kernel, here is it's black heart:

[T]he defining feature of consequentialism . . . is hat there is no such thing as an action that is wrong whatever the consequences, and conversely, there is no such thing as an action that is right irrespective of the consequences. No actions are absolutely right or absolutely right: they take whatever moral complexion they have from their contribution, in the circumstances, to the maximization of X.

Oderberg, 68-69. Breaking one's promise, committing adultery, homicide, lying, bombing innocent populations with an atom bomb . . . you name it. There are no moral absolutes.*** All is negotiable so long as X is maximized. X, whatever X may be, becomes the new deity, the irrepressible Juggernaut and moral tyrant. It is apparent that if all is negotiable to the moral calculus, it follows that consequentialism is "incompatible with the existence of rights which prohibit certain kinds of act no matter what the consequences are." A consequentialist would never say: fiat justitia ruat caelum. Do justice, though the heaven's fall. A consequentialist would say, to keep the heaven's from falling, do injustice.

The upshot of consequentialism--that there are no such things as absolute rights--is admitted by the more candid of the consequentialists, and Oderberg provides a smattering of representative quotes.**** Even if they use the word "right," they have re-defined it to conform with their theory, and so cannot be regarded as "right" in any traditional sense. They are about as much "rights" as Satan's promises are promises: Faustian bargains both.

(continued)
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*See Sichselbstnichtsogesetzthaben and the Natural Law. Throughout this posting, the spelling from quotes from Oderberg's works are Americanized. Thus, maximise is rendered maximize, judgement rendered judgment, etc.
**Essentially, utilitarianism and consequentialism are synonyms. As Oderberg notes, "consequentialism" was a derogatory term used by the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe to describe the utilitarian theory of morality. The utilitarians have taken to wearing that badge with pride, sort of like Ultramontanes enjoy being called Papists.
***Perhaps one of the best monographs on this issue, and certainly one of the bests I have encountered, is John Finnis, Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and Truth (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1991).
****Peter Singer: "I am not convinced that the notion of a moral right is a helpful or meaningful one." J. J. C. Smart: "[H]owever unhappy about it he may be, the utilitarian must admit that he draws the consequence that he might find himself in circumstances where he ought to be unjust." John Harris: "I do not accept that there are any 'absolute' or 'natural' rights . . . the use of the word 'right' more often serves to obscure the rights and wrongs of an issue than to elucidate them."

Contra Consquentialismum: Freedom and Responsibility

FREEDOM IS PRESUPPOSED BY MORALITY, as there cannot be any real good and evil, or certainly not any right or wrong, if the person acting is not free, if everything is determined. The concept of freedom is, however, frequently misunderstood. Freedom is not a power for choosing evil, and it is not a fundamental feature of freedom that the existence of evil follows from it. "[T]he fact that people choose [evil] is not be be admired as proof of human freedom." God, we may remember, is supremely free . . . and supremely good. The power to do evil is, at best, a "sign of freedom, but only in the sense in which disease is a sign of life." Oderberg, MT, 28. There is no decrease of freedom if people were only to choose good, any more than there would be a decrease in mathematical thinking if our mathematicians were always right. There is no increase of freedom because people do evil, any more than we advance mathematically when a larger portion of mathematicians get things wrong.

Further, in understanding freedom, a distinction ought to be made between physical and psychological (or even legal) freedom and moral freedom. It is obvious that we are "free" physically, psychologically, and even legally (in this country, to its everlasting shame) to kill an unborn fetus; however, we are in no regard morally free to do so since it is an inexcusable violation of the absolute right of life of the child. Moral freedom is a "species of rational freedom," and "one is ever morally free to do the right thing," and only the right thing. There is no moral freedom to do the wrong thing, only physical, psychological, or, depending on the positive law, legal freedom. But these latter "freedoms" are not freedom plain and simple.

Freedom's Often Misunderstood

Human moral freedom is influenced by a number of factors, individual (age, temperament, talent, etc.) and social (upbringing, the surrounding culture, fashions, public opinion, prevailing ideology, etc.). Freedom is also affected by prior choice.* Regardless of these influences--and they can have great effect on us--they do not fundamentally rob us of free will.

"That a person is essentially a free agent means that he is responsible for his actions; he answers (responds) for them . . . a person's actions are imputable to him." Oderberg, MT, 30. This, of course, means that a person is "liable to reward or punishment," sanction or desert, depending upon his actions.

Two essential components are required for a free act to subject us to moral responsibility: knowledge and voluntariness. Knowledge and voluntariness are the sine qua nons of moral freedom and responsibility in the exercise of that freedom.

A person is responsible for his action if and only if it is done knowingly and voluntarily; the complete absence of either or both of these elements destroys freedom and hence responsibility. A partial lack of either or both lessens or diminishes responsibility, but does not destroy it.

Oderberg, MT, 30.

Knowledge is the foundation of intention. "As Aristotle pointed out, one does not will what one does not know." Oderberg, 30.

The voluntariness need not be "presently occurring," it can be "virtual." We can make a choice, that, as it were, we carry with us throughout the day, though it may not be actively present with us at the time of the act, but it informs the act and gives it a moral character. "In such a case, we might call the intention or choice virtual, since the power (or virtue)" of the initial resolution lasts throughout the entire day until revoked or changed. If sufficiently repeated, such a virtual power can become habitual. "The habitual intention is, as it were, worn like a forgotten piece of jewelery, and is a sign of a certain attitude of mind." If the habitual intention relates to moral matters and to good, we call it a virtue. If the habitual intention relates to moral matters and to evil, we call it vice.

Both knowledge and voluntariness are not discrete categories. We are not dealing with either absolute knowledge or voluntariness (for there to be freedom, and hence an act to be praiseworthy or blameworthy) versus total absence of knowledge of voluntariness (for there to be total destruction of freedom, and hence no responsibility). There are shades of knowledge and shades of voluntariness. Both external (violence) and internal factors (extreme fear or other passion) and habit (good or bad) can affect these, and mitigate moral blame to a greater or lesser degree. "Thus moral praise and blame are not all-or-nothing matters--they are matters of degree." Oderberg, 31. Acts may be intentional, reckless, negligent, inadvertent, in absolute ignorance, and anything in between, and the external and internal factors that can affect them are myriad.** It becomes clear, therefore, that "morality is not just about individual actions, but about the character of the person who acts." Oderberg, 33.

The fact that blameworthiness or praiseworthiness is subject to degrees does not mean "that boundaries of right and wrong are somehow blurred and confused. It does not mean there are no clear limits that, if crossed, make the agent guilty of a wrong act pure and simple." Oderberg, 33. "In morality, then, there are certain base levels of conduct that make certain actions right or wrong whatever the circumstances."*** Oderberg, 33.

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*A particularly poignant and extreme example of how prior choice may rob us of moral freedom arises from in vitro fertilization where, to improve success, multiple embryos are conceived in vitro and then some preserved by cryopreservation (freezing). These human beings, "orphans" held in animated state, in a limbo of man's own making, are forgotten by their parents and society. There is no way morally to dispose of this problem. We have painted ourselves in a moral corner; it is an insoluble dilemma. This is an instance where we have no moral freedom (other than do nothing) because of our prior evil choices: "All things considered, it needs to be recognized that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved. Therefore John Paul II made an “appeal to the conscience of the world’s scientific authorities and in particular to doctors, that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons”. Dignitatis personae, no. 19 (Instruction on Certain Bioethical Question, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). What kind of society would put itself in such a moral quandary? What kind of society would turn a deaf ear to the Pope's plea?
**Though unmentioned by Oderberg, classical moral theology distinguishes between: (i) human acts, that is, deliberate free acts, acts with requisite knowledge and voluntariness, and acts of man, that is, acts performed either without sufficient deliberation, or lacking knowledge or free will. The latter category includes unconscious acts, involuntary acts, semi-deliberate acts (e.g., acts done while half asleep and in a state or torpor), and spontaneous acts done on impulse without reflection.
***Oderberg gives as examples murder, manslaughter, rape, child abuse, fraud. Oderberg, 33.

Contra Consequentialismum: Relativism's Unrelative

RELATIVISM IS THE MOST COMMON FORM of moral skepticism about us. Personal relativism insists that there is no such thing as moral truths that extend beyond what is true for the individual. Since morality is a matter of individual opinion, of sentiment, then morality is subjective, about feeling, at best. Relativism also comes in other forms. For example, it can extend beyond personal relativism to cultural or social relativism, providing that morality is a cultural or social norm, and not necessarily a personal norm. But in whatever form it may be found, individualistic or socialistic, fundamentally all forms of relativism share "the central dogma that moral propositions, instead of having objective truth--truth for all people in all places at all times--are true relative to one standard but not another." Oderberg, MT, 16. In other words, relativists are relative or standardless about all things but one, the relativism of relativism. Relativism is, for them, the only thing unrelative. The relativist believes in no absolute dogma but one: all morality is relative. It would seem that relativism is inconsistent with itself ab initio, from its foundation.

And so it it is.

The foundational inconsistency of the relativists ethic shows up in the conundrums they are easily forced into. For example: If all morality is relative, subjective, personal, it follows that that morality ought not to be imposed upon anyone else. In other words, there is no warrant for me to force my views upon you, and you to force your views upon me. Tolerance, therefore, is the mandatum novum, the new commandment for the relativist. But isn't this prime virtue of relativism, tolerance, then, following relativism's own assumption that all is relative, subjective, a matter of opinion? What, then, of the man whose personal belief is that tolerance is wrong, that he has the right to impose his belief system on whomever he sees fit, by physical or legal coercion, even torture and violence if necessary? (Folks like this aren't too hard to find: look at the ranks of Al Qaida or the advocates of homosexual marriage. These folks insist we should see things their way and use rather forceful means to insist.) Must the relativist be tolerant of the intolerant? To be consistent with his principles, the relativist must be tolerant of the intolerant. This is then a collapse into a moral nihilism, as it will allow for anything. Am I to be tolerant of a pedophile who believes that pedophilia is the only proper expression of human sexuality, and that he has the right to indoctrinate children to his manner of thinking? Most relativists will not extend their dogma so far.

If the relativist, however, decides to be intolerant of the intolerant, then the relativist has violated his own principle. Against his central tenet, he has adopted an objective, absolute, exceptionless truth which requires him to adopt an objective moral law: intolerance is exceptionlessly, absolutely evil. On what basis do they found this? The relativist remains mum to the question. There is no basis, given the relativist's assumptions, to justify the dogmatic assumption of this one, exceptional principle. As W. V. Quine, the American analytic philosopher and himself a philosophical relativist, has conceded in the context of cultural relativism: "He [the cultural relativist] cannot proclaim cultural relativism without rising above it, and he cannot rise above it without giving it up." Oderberg, MT, 20 (quoting W. V. Quine, "On Empirically Equivalent Systems in the Word," Erkenntnis 9 (1975), 328-28).

Two other ethical theories reject the objective nature of the ethical realm. For these two schools of thought, the "world of ought" does not exist, and so they are foundationally skeptical like the relativist. The first such theory is expressivism or emotivism. This theory of morality also hales from Hume, who in his Treatise on Human Nature (III.I.II) concluded: "Morality, therefore, is more properly felt than judged of." This thought was taken and ran with under the name emotivism by the likes of Ogden and Richards, A. J. Ayer, and C. L. Stevenson. The central core of these school of thought is that moral precepts are not really moral precepts at all, and certainly not descriptive of a fact of the moral realm, but rather expressions of deeply felt feelings of repugnance or attraction. So the statement, "Child abuse is wrong," is really nothing other than an expression of "Down with child abuse!" Affirmatively, the statement, "Promises ought to be kept," is really nothing but "Up with promise-keeping!" Oderberg, MT, 23. Moral statements are really nothing more than sophisticated "grunts and groans" of emotional satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Morality is nothing other than discussion about boos and discussion about hurrahs, and so it may also be regarded as the "Boo-Hurrah" moral theory.

Prescriptivism, another moral theory that denies the factual reality of the moral realm, promotes moral statements from "grunts and groans" to mere prescriptions, that is, to imperatives or commands. A prescriptivist would therefore take the statement "Child abuse is wrong" to mean "Do not be a child abuser," and the statement, "Promises ought to be kept," as "Do keep your promises." In other words, moral oughts are really nothing other than efforts than one person trying to command another person, but have no real objective foundation.

The problem with such theories as emotivism and prescriptivism is that they run afoul of how men think, and how they use moral statements, and so are not satisfactory theories of the moral life of man.* We naturally use moral statements as the basis for reasoning. If moral statements were, in fact merely statements of emotion or statements of command disguised in other form, we would not be able to use them this way.

Both expressivism and prescriptivism equate the assertion of a moral proposition with something other than the statement of a fact: in one case an expression of emotion, in the other a command. However, one can do more with moral propositions than assert them: one can use them in the context of other more complex propositions, so the moral proposition that is a component of the more complex one is not asserted at all.

Oderberg, MT, 24. In other words, we use moral statements in a manner that is inconsistent with them being expressions of emotion or statements of command. We use them as statements of moral fact.

So, for example, from the moral statement "Prostitution is wrong," I can also say, "If Prostitution is wrong, then so is living off the earnings of prostitution." Using a form of syllogistic reason,** I can then reason that since Prostitution is wrong it necessarily follows that it is wrong to live of its earnings. Such reasoning cannot take place if the statement "Prostitution is wrong" is an expression or emotion or of command because it queers the syllogism.*** The term "Prostitution is wrong" must mean the same thing in the statement "Prostitution is wrong" as it does in the second statement "If Prostitution is wrong, then . . . ." or we have a fallacy.

Under the expressivist view, the first statement ("Prostitution is wrong") is nothing other than the statement "Down with Prostitution!" So the syllogism becomes: "Down with Prostitution!" If "Down with prostitution!" then "Down with living off its earnings!" Therefore, "Down with living of the earnings of prostitution!" In the prescriptivist view, the first statement ("Prostitution is wrong") is equivalent to "Do not be a prostitute." So the syllogism becomes "Do not be a prostitute." If "Do not be a prostitute," then "Do not live of its earnings." Therefore, "Do not live off the earnings of prostitution."

But the statements: "If 'Down with prostitution!' then 'Down with living off its earnings!'" and "If 'Do not be a prostitute' then 'Do not live off the earnings of prostitution'" are meaningless. So: (i) either they are wrong about moral statements being mere statements of emotion or statements of command (in which case they are wrong), or (ii) they are right about moral statements being nothing other than statements of emotion or statements of command, in which case any moral reasoning is made meaningless an nonsensical (because you can't take a command or expression of emotion and make and "if . . . then . . . " statement out of it) (which means they are wrong), or (iii) they use terms equivocally (to avoid the problems associated with "if . . . then . . . statements) and are guilty of the fallacy of equivocation (in which case they are wrong). Quartum non datur. No matter what, the result is "expressivism and prescriptivism are false." Oderberg, 25.

The fact is that, in reasoning about things in the realm of action, we use moral statements as if they were statements of fact related to a moral realm. We do not use moral statements as if they were in reality mere statements of command or expressions of emotions likes and dislikes. The emotivist and the prescriptivist simply do not describe what really happens among men. They fail to explain reality, and, in Oderberg's view "'ditch' reality." Oderberg, 26.

The fact is, man uses moral statements in a manner, not as expressions of command or feeling, but as statements of fact, as indicative statements. They are stated as if they are "being asserted as true or false," they are expressed in a manner where they can be "agreed or disagreed with," they are used "as premises in arguments."

[A moral statement] has the same indicative or fact-stating form as 'Grass is green.' As such, it can serve as a free-standing premise in an argument, such as the first premise [in a syllogism], as well as being embedded within a compound proposition, such as the 'if . . . then . . . ' proposition which [may be] the second premise of . . . [an] argument. . . . It is these arguments that we perfectly well understand, and which we assess for validity . . . , but which, if prescriptivism or expressivism were true, would turn out to be incomprehensible at worst, or implausibly have to be deemed invalid at best.

Oderberg, 25-26. But the prescriptivist and emotivist or expressivist do more than screw with, or misinterpret, moral reasoning, that is moral syllogistic reasoning. They also denude moral statements, restrict them, really dehumanize them. Man is fundamentally moral, and to wrest his moral utterances from a factual moral realm, in which he lives and moves and has his being, and put them into the realm of mere emotion or command, is to dehumanize him. "Moral propositions are not always asserted: they are embedded in unasserted contexts like 'if . . then . . . ' statements, but they are also assumed, wondered about, entertained, and the like. In all such contexts, treating them as commands or expressions produces nonsense." Oderberg, MT, 26-27.

Oderberg is clear. It is not that command or emotion have no role in moral reasoning or moral reality. Moral propositions--which are propositions of moral fact--can be used, and frequently are found, in commands. They can be formulated into law. Violation of moral propositions can also elicit disgust, disdain, anger, sorrow. But the real world of morality is not in command and not in emotion, the real world behind command and emotion is what the emotivist and the prescriptivist miss.

Expressivism and prescriptivism err by reversing the true order of explanation: it is the truth and falsehood of moral statements that justify the having of certain emotional responses and the issuing of commands.

Oderberg, MT, 27. The moral reality justifies the command and the emotion. And not vice versa. It is not the command and the emotion that justify the moral reality. The moral reality exists irrespective of command (command can err: laws can be unjust or vicious). The moral reality exists irrespective of emotion ("If it feels good, do it!" is a moral abomination).
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*Oderberg attributes this argument to Peter Geach, who derived it from the German philosopher Gottlob Frege. Oderberg cites to two of Geach's papers: "Ascriptivism," Philosophical Review 69 (1960), pp. 221-5, reprinted in Peter Geach, Logic Matters (Oxford: Blackwell, 1972), 250-54, and "Assertion," Philosophical Review 74 (1965), pp. 449-65.
**modus ponens: If A, then B; A; therefore, B.
***It results in the fallacy called the "fallacy of equivocation." In other words it ascribes the same meaning to an expression in two propositions that in fact mean two different things.

Contra Consequentialismum: Skeptical of Skepticism

SKEPTICISM ABOUT THE OBJECTIVE NATURE of good and evil, right and wrong--moral skepticism--runs rampant in the Western world. Advance the notion of objective right and wrong in any conversation, or insist on an absolute exceptionless rule, and people become unsettled, and they tune you off, even ridicule you as an obscurantist, since such a position seems to be contrary to the primary virtues of the day: open-mindedness, tolerance, pluralism, relativism. But moral theory--which concerns itself with right and wrong--would be a poor science indeed (and it claims to be a science, though obviously not an empirical or experimental science such as chemistry or sociology) if its subject matter--moral right and wrong--were so amorphous and shapeless, so unbased upon reality, as to have no objective, intelligible substance; or if its method, teachings, and expression were irreparably and fundamentally nothing but an expression of the proponent's subjective opinion. If morality is like poetry or like painting, then it is not a science, and it yields not knowledge, but is an art at best. If morality is based upon nothing else but subjective feeling, then it is analogous to the Eucharist being just a symbol, and not the Real Presence of Christ. "Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it," the writer Flannery O'Connor famously said. And if morality is not based upon objective reality, if there really is not an objective, real moral world, a moral realm "out there" or "within us," then to hell with morality! That's, of course, what relativists and moral skeptics basically say.

As an applied science, moral knowledge (not necessarily behavior) ought to progress or converge upon truth, advancing from relative ignorance, and there ought to be significant agreement among its adepts as to proper teaching. If it doesn't move towards greater knowledge and agreement, then its lack of progress or the lack of agreement ought to be able to be explained. That people generally disbelieve that moral knowledge has progressed or converges upon truths and its advocates have reached consensus is the result of a prevailing spirit of moral skepticism.

Moral skepticism denies the existence of objective right and wrong--which necessarily means it advances moral relativism: all moral thought is relative, there is no one single truth on the matter that all must hold with regard to the good and the right. Wrested away from modern biases, or perhaps better, ideologies, however, the case for an objective moral reality is very strong. And the case against moral skepticism is unanswerable, since, from an intellectual point of view, moral skepticism is intellectually baseless.* In other words, modernly, we have put ourselves in the shade of skepticism, and so are unable to appreciate the light of objective moral truths. Moderns are blinded by irrational bias; they are diseased with the cancer of skepticism and have made the foolish diagnosis that the cancer is the healthy tissue, and the healthy tissue is diseased.

Though moral knowledge is objectively-based, true knowledge, it would be wrong to expect it to be as precise as, geometry or chemistry. A "crucial point, one made by Aristotle" long ago, must be kept in mind by us moderns: "every science is only as precise as its subject matter allows." Oderberg, MT, 3. Moral theory, by its very nature, is therefore inexact, often, though not always, dealing with probable or approximate answers.** But being inexact is not equivalent to being unknowable. We ought not be misled by the inexactitude of moral knowledge:

There is an essential element of inexactitude in moral theory, corresponding to the elusiveness and unfathomability of man of the predicaments people find themselves in. It stems also from the mysterious depths of the human soul, with its often dimly understood thicket of motivations, desires, beliefs, and emotions. . . . The moral theories should minimize these where possible, but they cannot be eliminated and should indeed be welcomed as indicators that morality is about people, not machines.

Oderberg, MT, 4. Moral knowledge is also hampered by social influences, personal desires, prevailing ideology, in ways that the empirical sciences are not (though empirical sciences are not absolutely immune from these influences either).*** Moral knowledge, then, is knowledge about what is right and wrong, good and evil. It is applied or practical knowledge, that is, it tells us how we should act to do right and advance the good, to avoid doing wrong and so shun evil. It informs us how to be good humans. If one is a moral "realist," then morality is "real," and there is a "moral realm" which is real, true, objective, intelligible, and binding upon us.

David Hume, Empirical Philosopher and Advocate of the "Natural Fallacy"

The modern penchant toward rejecting moral realism and instead adopting a moral skepticism is largely the result of the "empiricist tradition in philosophy." Oderberg, MT, 9. One of the most significant sources of modern moral skepticism is the critique of moral knowledge resulting from the fact-value distinction (also called the naturalistic fallacy, "is/ought" distinction, or Hume's guillotine).

The distinction finds its classic statement in the philosophy of David Hume: He famously remarked: 'In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked that the author . . . makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual . . . propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.'

Oderberg, MT, 9 (quoting Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, III.I.I). The fact-value distinction states that it is logically wrong to jump from fact (is) to obligation or value (ought). Since moral matters involve obligations and duties (oughts and ought nots), they cannot be based on fact. (ises or is nots). And so they must be based upon something else, choose your poison: perhaps feeling, tastes, emotions, in any event, something other than fact. Since facts are the only objective reality (and the only basis for sciences, narrowly understood empirically) it follows, Hume insists, that morality is not about objective reality. So teaches Hume, and the whole Western world seemed to have swallowed Hume's pill. Ingemuit totus orbis, et Humeanum se esse miratus est. The modern world groaned and has found itself Humean. Has swallowing Hume's pill been wise or foolish?

Foolish. Foolish because the advocates of the fact-value distinction have put themselves on the horns of a dilemma which reflects the absurdity of their main philosophical tenet regarding the moral world. The dilemma comes from their understanding of "fact." They have to define "fact" to exclude "ethical facts," but in doing so they simply beg the question, that is, avoid the confrontation of the "ethical realist"** who insists that there are such things as "ethical facts." So how can they argue with the ethical realist to prove that the Humean position that all there are is empirical fact is the assumption to make? "If the skeptic about moral facts wants to use the notion of a fact to cast doubt on [moral] realism, then, he must not rely on a conception that the moral realist does not share in the first place." There are no givens shared by the Humeans and the non-Humeans from which argument between them can be based. So where does the Humean go to establish his argument?

Humeans in fact, are doom to fail based upon their presuppositions. There is no empirical "fact" that exists to which the Humeans can point to that "ethical facts" do not exist. Where, in the concrete reality they say is the entirety of reality, is the fact that says there is no such thing as an ethical realm? To argue that empirical facts are the entirety of reality, and that moral or ethical facts are not facts, the Humeans must leave the empirical world of empirical facts, thus disproving their insistence that all there are are empirical facts. The Humeans, in other words, are in the predicament of having to prove (from empirical fact alone) the proposition that "one ought not to believe in ethical facts, but only in empirical facts," but to argue such a proposition they violate their basic assumption by having to depart the world of empirical facts. In other words, there is no way for them to prove, given their assumptions, that there are no such things as "ethical facts." They can only endeavor to prove their assumption by violating it. Their fundamental oughtness that all there is is isness cannot be proved from the fundamental assumption that all there is is isness. Hence their dilemma.

Empirically, Reason Why One Gives Alms Doesn't Exist

There is, however, more. The Humean assumption that only empirical facts exist poses real problems, as it excludes a whole demimonde of facts we routinely accept as description of reality. "[T]he distinction [between fact and value] does imply an unbridgeable conceptual gap between facts and values--but the cost of forging it, for the Humean, is that he loses his grip on reality." Oderberg, MT, 13. In his insistence on empirical reality, the Humean loses out on the reality of things like human intent, or human assessment. The Humean, sort of like Oedipus but for less noble reasons, blinds himself, gouges out his eyes, and then suggests he sees better than the rest of folks. He is Aesop's fox without a tail, arguing to his fellows that tails are cumbersome extremities. Therefore, Hume can empirically equate the sapling growing up and overtaking its parent tree robbing it of the sun, to a son being ungrateful or even a son killing his father. For a Humean, the "relations are the same." Both descriptions of the event, from an empirical point of view, are identical in the Humean world looked at with gouged-out eyes. Empiricism cannot distinguish the obvious difference between the two. The Humean cannot distinguish between the man who gives alms in charity and the man who gives alms in vanity: empirically, they are both doing the same thing: putting money in the poor box. The Humean world clearly involves "a radically impoverished apprehension of reality; not [only] an impoverished conception of morality, but of what exactly is going on." Oderberg, MT, 14. It is a Humean trait to describe abortion as the "termination of pregnancy," instead of murder. It is a Humean trait to describe lies as "misstatements" or being "economical with the truth." The world of reality extends far beyond the Humean world of empirical fact:

With a more complete appreciation of reality, there will still be a distinction between facts and values; there will still be a way of describing the world that only pays attention, say, to microphysics, to chemistry, to the movements of particles, to the interaction of objects, to pure cause an effect, and so on. But these descriptions will only capture a segment of reality, one which has a definite but limited place in ethical theory.

Oderberg, MT, 15. In other words, the moral realist can accept empiricism while yet recognizing that there is an entire reality outside of it; the moral realist can see (he has not gouged out his intellectual eyes like the Humean Oedipus, though he may see enough figuratively to pluck one of his eyes out so that he does not get cast into Hell if that eye causes him to sin, cf. Matt. 5:29; 18:9; Mark 9:47). The moral realists can see that empiricism, while valuable in its sphere, fails to describe the entirety of reality. Empiricism can only describe a part, a small part, and perhaps the least important part of the cosmos. It is wholly blind to the pearls of great price which are seen in the moral realm.
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*Since true philosophical and moral knowledge (e.g., the existence of God, the existence of objective moral truth) is based upon certain self-evident principles, which cannot be certainly proved, as by definition self-evident principles cannot be proved; however, with enough patience and effort, any thought that rejects such self-evident principles can be shown to be certainly false, baseless, or lead to absurdity.
**Hence the fight among probabilists, probabliorists, and equiprobabilists.
***See Mark Walker, ed., Science and Ideology: A Comparative History (New York: Routledge, 2003).

Contra Consequentialismum: Introduction

IN THIS NEXT SERIES OF BLOG POSTINGS, we shall look at the moral theory of consquentialism or utilitarianism, a teleological ethic which probably, in its various varietals, is the ascendant, prevailing moral theory in the West. Consequentialism is a theory of morality that is at odds with the natural law and with virtue-based ethics.* Its only viable competitor in the secular world is perhaps some sort of Kantianism or deontological (duty-based) ethic, although the natural law and virtue-based ethics are making a sort of comeback perhaps because of the felt inadequacies of the other theories. Consequentialism or utilitarianism finds its modern beginnings in the thought of the likes of James Mill (1773–1836), Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Though the consequentialist moral theory has roots in the early 19th century, it has developed from its primitive beginnings as a result of attacks from its critics, and is alive and well and finds such modern exponents even propagandists such as the Australian moral philosopher and animal rights activist Peter Singer (1946 - )

In writing this series, we will be relying heavily on the two works of David S. Oderberg, Moral Theory: A Non-Consequentialist Approach"The doctrine of the sanctity of human life has come under merciless attack in recent years, and is the first principle that most applied ethicists seek to undermine. Without it, there is no traditional morality."
--David S. Oderberg and its companion volume, Applied Ethics: A Non-Consequentialist Approach.*

David Oderberg, an Australian with a PhD from Oxford, is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, in the United Kingdom. He is the author of a number of articles regarding metaphysics, ethics, philosophical logic and other subjects. His metaphysics is Aristotelian, and his morality is based upon traditional concepts of natural law.

Professor Oderberg realizes that, contemporaneously, his is the minority report, but he also realizes that, viewed historically, his is the theory with the better pedigree. Viewed historically, the consequentialist theory, and the moral skepticism and relativism and rejection of human nature as a standard that comes with it, is a moral upstart, a moral parvenu, the new kid on the block. Neither of these facts, or course, establish the veracity or lack of veracity of either theory, but the fact that the traditional morality has been held by so many for so long gives one some psychological assurance that perhaps there is more to it than meets the eyes of moderns who scoff at it and its supporters.

David S. Oderberg, Professor of Philosophy at Reading University

[E]ven if the bulk of moral philosophers find the conclusions I reach unpalatable, disagreeable, absurd, anachronistic, barbaric, bizarre, or just plain wrong, I console myself with the following thought: that every single one of the major positions I defend was believed by the vast majority of human beings in Western society for thousands of years, right up until some time in the 1960s, when the Western Cultural Revolution took place. (I do not speak of the non-Western societies, which even today subscribe to most or all of the views defended here.)

Oderberg, MT, viii. We shall follow the structure of Oderberg's Moral Theory. He first addresses the issue of skepticism and the skeptical prejudices that color, or perhaps better blind, the majority of men in Western societies, and which makes them believe that morality is purely subjective and without objective basis. Then he addresses the principal foundations of traditional morality. Following that, he addresses some of principles of the rival schools, specifically contractualism and consequentialism. Finally, he focuses on the moral principle of the sanctity of human life, a principle that "has come under merciless attack in recent years, and is the first principle that most applied ethicists seek to undermine. Without it, there is no traditional morality." Oderberg, MT, x.

These works of Oderberg are unapologetically anti-consequentialist. In his words, they "concentrate on [consquentialism's] incompatibility with the basic demands of rights and of justice (due primarily to its 'maximising' and calculative nature), and hence its fundamentally inhuman character." Oderberg, MT, x. His arguments for traditional morality and against consequentialism are based upon reason alone. In fact, it is impossible for me to tell from these two works alone, what his religious confession is, or if he even has one.*** While his positions are largely consistent with the moral doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, they seem to be based on, or at least argued from, foundations that are entirely areligious, principally upon Aristotelian principles.

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*In fact, not only is it unreasonable, as we will endeavor to argue, it is unfaithful to the Church's teaching. It has reared its ugly face in modified form in Catholic circles under the name "Proportionalism." Cf. Pope John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, Nos. 75-76: ". . . This "teleologism", as a method for discovering the moral norm, can thus be called--according to terminology and approaches imported from different currents of thought--"consequentialism" or "proportionalism". The former claims to draw the criteria of the rightness of a given way of acting solely from a calculation of foreseeable consequences deriving from a given choice. The latter, by weighing the various values and goods being sought, focuses rather on the proportion acknowledged between the good and bad effects of that choice, with a view to the 'greater good' or 'lesser evil' actually possible in a particular situation. The teleological ethical theories (proportionalism, consequentialism), while acknowledging that moral values are indicated by reason and by Revelation, maintain that it is never possible to formulate an absolute prohibition of particular kinds of behaviour which would be in conflict, in every circumstance and in every culture, with those values. . . . Even when grave matter is concerned, these precepts should be considered as operative norms which are always relative and open to exceptions. . . . These theories can gain a certain persuasive force from their affinity to the scientific mentality, which is rightly concerned with ordering technical and economic activities on the basis of a calculation of resources and profits, procedures and their effects. . . . Such theories however are not faithful to the Church's teaching, when they believe they can justify, as morally good, deliberate choices of kinds of behavior contrary to the commandments of the divine and natural law. These theories cannot claim to be grounded in the Catholic moral tradition." [N.B. The "teologism" referred to by John Paul II should not be confused with the teleology that is part and parcel of the traditional natural law doctrine. The "teologism" here refers to the end or consequences of the act as the determinant of its morality, whereas the teology in the natural law theory refers to the final end or intrinsic end of a nature.]
**David S. Oderberg, Moral Theory: A Non-Consquentialist Approach (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000) (herein "MT") and Applied Ethics: A Non-Consequentialist Approach(Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000) (herein "AE").
***The only clue is in the selection of cover art, The Adoration of the Magi (by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi) for MT and The Massacre of the Innocents (by Fran Angelico) for AE.

Cardinal Mercier and the Natural Law, Part 8

WHETHER OUR ACT IS GOOD or our act is evil depends upon one, and only thing: whether that act conforms or does not conform to our supreme end, which, by now, we know (by reason alone, bracketing revelation for the moment) is the contemplation of God. An object is good if it is the object of a morally good act. We know these truths based upon reason alone, though they are consonant and supplemented with the truths of revelation. It follows that a morally evil act is the opposite of a morally good act. It is an act that is opposed to our supreme good: "it is the act which is prejudicial to the perfecting of our rational nature, or it is the object of this act." [231(32)] There is a corollary which follows from this, and it is that every good act is, "at least implicitly or virtually, an act which contributes to the glory of God." The negative is that every morally bad act, "inasmuch as it cannot be referred to God, the last end of creation, is blameworthy in his sight." [232(33)] (citing S. T. Ia-IIae, q. 21, a. 4)

In determining whether an act is morally good or morally evil, we must look at three sources of morality: (1) the formal object of the act; (2) the circumstances surrounding the act; and (3) the end of the act. These are called the "sources of morality," or the "fonts of morality." Mercier looks at these three "sources" or "fonts" and then compares them to utilitarian, evolutionist, sociological, and pragmatist theories of morality.

The Three Sources of Morality. "The formal object is the first determinant of the goodness or badness of a human action." [232)34)] The operative term here is "form." As Mercier explains:

By formal object we mean not the reality, considered absolutely, of a thing, but the reality looked at in reference to the moral act, as bearing a relation of the conformity or want of conformity with the end of the rational nature of the agent.

[232(34)] Suppose two men, George and Bill, have $1,000. The material object is the acquisition and possession of $1,000. This is not the formal object. The first (Bill), we learn, acquired the $1,000 through theft. The other (George), we learn, acquired it as a result of a gift. Therefore, though the material act is the same (acquisition and possession of $1,000), the formal act is entirely different. The formal act is the acquisition of $1,000 through theft. The formal act in the case of George is the acquisition of $1,000 through a gift.

The second source of morality is circumstance. "The objective circumstances of time, place, and person likewise contribute their share to the character of the moral act." [232(34)] The example given by Mercier makes intuitive sense: stealing five shillings from a poor man is a greater wrong that stealing the same amount from a rich man. This is an extraneous circumstance that colors the moral act, and so must be taken into account in determining the character of the act.

The third source of morality is the end, or the extrinsic purpose of the act. "[T]he extrinsic purpose contributes to the perfection or imperfection of an act." [232(34)] This is typically regarded as the agent's motive. An act has two kinds of purposes, an intrinsic and an extrinsic purpose. Thus, in the case of someone who gives alms to the poor out of a religious motive (i.e., out of love of Christ and his suffering members), the intrinsic purpose of almsgiving is to help the needy. This is intrinsic to the act of almsgiving, and it exists regardless of the motive or extrinsic purpose of the agent in giving alms. In this case, the extrinsic purpose of the agent (giving alms for the love of Christ) is commendable. It would be otherwise if the actor were giving alms for the purpose of assuaging his vanity gaining some sort of power of those he helps. In the latter case, the extrinsic purpose (motive) would be different from the first.

All three sources must be good for a moral act to be good. "The absence of any one of these conditions is sufficient to make the act a bad one: 'Bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu'." [233(34)]

This view of the moral act is decidedly different from that entertained by Thomas Hobbes and "all the adherents of the modern positivistic school," including Émile Littré (1801-81), Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), and Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), who "consider man's well-being, that is the pleasure of the present life, to be the sole motive-force of all our actions," whether that well-being is of the community or the individual is irrelevant. Hedonism is opposed to the natural law. Morality is not determined on the basis of whether an act is pleasurable or painful; morality is determined on whether the integral moral act is consonant with the ultimate end of man, and thus a morally good act may be painful or pleasurable, depending upon the circumstances, but the pain or pleasure of the act is not what is drives the norm of right and wrong.

Cardinal Mercier raises some objections to individualistic utilitarianism. This theory relies on well-being of man as the end-all of morality, well-being defined as the maximization of pleasure in this life. First, Mercier points out that a system of individualistic utilitarianism rests on a contradiction when it maintains that pleasure is primary object of the will. Pleasure follows will; it does not precede the will. Secondly, pleasure is such a subjective principle. It is "essentially relative to the individual person and varies with the different circumstances of life." [233(36)] It follows that it is not capable of providing a rule of distinguishing "one thing or action as objectively and intrinsically right from another as objectively and intrinsically wrong." [234(36)] It thus collapses to relativism. Third, it abandons reason, and to allow pleasure to control of the human rein of morality is ultimately is fatal to human behavior.

[I]f reason is left out of account and it is indulged in recklessly and without discrimination, [it] is self-destructive, for experience teaches us that it is followed by pain or transforms itself into pain. This principle of moral hedonomism or egoism is, then, self-contradictory and leads to logical suicide.

[234(36)] To overcome the deficiency of pleasure as the foundational moral principles, some moralists substituted utility for pleasure as moral's first principle. "But the useful is not an end; it is only a means in view of an end." Something is useful with respect to a certain standard. What then is that standard? Utilitarianism is thus stillborn.

Social utilitarianism attempts to solve the inherent egoism in individual utilitarianism by transferring the moral principle to an individual to the social body, thus "man must seek the welfare of the greatest number, the amelioration of humanity." [234(37)] Social utilitarianism suffers from the same problem as individual utilitarianism: relativism. If individual utilitarianism is subjective because it relies on my pleasure or minimization of pain, how does social utilitarianism escape from relativism by relying on my neighbor's pleasure or lack of pain? Moreover, if my neighbor's happiness is to be maximized, we are brought once again to the question of what makes our neighbor happy, and so social utilitarianism merely defers but does not answer the question of what makes men happy.

There is another problem with placing the universal and basic moral principle in the "happiness for humanity." Such a criterion would make morality dependent upon society, whereas "morality is anterior to the organization of society." [234(37)] (As a thought experiment, one might place oneself on a desert island: without men around, are we free to engage in any behavior? Torture animals? Bestiality? Self-mutilation? Suicide? Blasphemy of God? Intemperance? Obviously, there are moral principles that do not rely upon the social body in which we are placed.)

Finally, social utilitarianism really collapses back into individual utilitarianism. "[F]or what indeed is social happiness but the happiness of the individuals who make up society? The distinction between good an evil for the community is accordingly subordinate to the distinction between good and evil for the individual." [235(37)] The social utilitarian has not escaped the relativism of the individual utilitarian.

Herbert Spencer (of "survival of the fittest" fame) sought to put utilitarianism on a scientific footing by tying it in with the Darwinian evolutionist theory. A one-dimensional man, Spencer places mankind in the material world only, and thus dumbs down morality into a "chapter in mechanics." [235(38)] In Herbert Spencer's mechanistic view of things:

[T]he universe is subject to two fundamental laws, the law of persistence of force and the law of evolution. The latter consists in the passing from 'the instability of the homogeneous' to 'the stability of the heterogeneous', and this stability results from the adaptation of a being to its environment. Hence, the moral end of man is nothing but the perfect adaptation of the individual to the conditions of social life.

[235(38)] Spencer's mechanistic view of the universe suffers from all such mechanistic theories. Most principally, however, "in such a system, liberty can find no place," and because of mechanistic determinism inherent in mechanistic views of the world, "the ideas of right and wrong no longer retain their proper meaning." [235(38)] Moreover, any theory of morality which relies on some supposed future state of mankind (i.e., one that relies upon progress or evolution) suffers from the problem of a moving standard. How is an individual to know what this "final state of humanity" is? How is an individual to know how to act so as to be realize this "supreme state" of mankind? Since, in the view of those who put morality on an evolutionary plane, mankind is in flux, how is it that we know to which end it is flowing? "Now what could be more complicated than this final equilibrium of all the forces of the universe which is to constitute the ultimate phase of the cosmic evolution?" [236(38)] The system reeks of impracticability, even impossibility.

The sociological systems of morality are also criticized by Cardinal Mercier. As examples of this he cites to the sociological systems of Lucien Lévy-Brühl (1857-1939) and of Émile Durkheim (1858-1917). Sociological systems of morality take the position that moral judgments are guided on nothing other than the social environment, and so are defined by society and are not antecedent to, or independent from, society. These theories are erroneous "since our fundamental moral judgments are the same always and everywhere, and are therefore not affected by the vicissitudes of social life." [236(39)]. Such statements as that of Samuel Butler from his The Note Books--"Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers. Cannibalism is moral in a cannibal country."*--posit a facile and unthinking identity between morality and custom. If morality is nothing but custom, then there is no such thing as morality. The argument is nothing but a sophistry, a means to relieve oneself of objective moral norms by collapsing the category of morality into the category of custom. Methinks I smell the smoke of Satan in such thoughts.

Finally, Cardinal Mercier rejects the pragmatists, whose advocates include William James (1842-1910) and Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). For pragmatists, "the moral ideal is lived in the collective consciousness by reason of the utility which it procures." However, such a system suffers from the same problem that confronts all utilitarian theories: it ultimately collapses into subjectivism, relativism. It "cannot escape the condemnation of purely capricious subjectivism."

All these alternative theories of morality--individual utilitarianism, social utilitarianism, social Darwinism, sociological schools of morality, pragmatism--ultimately collapse into relativism. Is it any wonder that, with the propagation of these theories and the rejection of natural law, the West is "moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires"? (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Pre-Conclave Sermon, before being elected Pope).

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*Samuel Butler, The Note Books (Pomona Press, 2006), 32.