Explaining Ethics Part 8

Simon Eassom from TPM online

The theorists introduced in the last few editions of this series have all made a similar assumption about human beings and their moral nature: humans are rational creatures and the use of their skills of reasoning are required to work out the differences between right and wrong or good and bad.

One problem with prioritising "reason" as a reason for doing anything is that the reasons presented will only persuade those who follow reason anyway. If somebody who asks, "Why should I behave in such and such a way?" is given the answer, "Because it is the way of reason," then could they (reasonably) respond, "But why should I do what is reasonable?"

Of course, to ask such a question would entail a contradiction if the inquirer is genuinely prepared to be swayed by reasoned argument. In other words, only a person who uses reason to form judgements would meaningfully ask such a question and yet the question is now redundant because they have already acquiesced to the primacy of reason on this matter. I won't pursue this logical conundrum further; suffice to say that it conveniently takes us to a consideration of a number of philosophers who could be grouped under the label of moral sense theorists.

Moral sense theory originated with the work of Lord Shaftsbury, Francis Hutcheson, and most notably David Hume at the beginning of the 18th century. It was an attempt to present an alternative to the dominance in normative theorising of moral rationalism.

Moral rationalists, such as Kant and Mill, uphold the intellect as playing the dominant role in recognising an act or set of circumstances as being good, right, just, noble or proper. For moral rationalists, the role of the intellect is to allow the observer to remove his or her own circumstances from the situation and make a judgement that is detached, impartial, and objective. We will then desire to achieve what is good or right because it is what reason demands and we are first and foremost creatures of reason. That is, my rational mind not only tells me what is logically and indubitably good or right, but I also recognise that I ought to do that which my rational mind tells me to do: I follow reason. Morality is dependent upon what we think is right, not what we feel is right. Moral rationalists have always been wary of the significance given to feelings. We must not let our hearts rule our heads! Thus, in a twist on Hume's ubiquitous phrase, the passions become the slaves of reason.

Moral sense theory introduced the idea of moral psychology: the psychological nature of the experience of morality. Can we ever really make "moral" decisions on the basis of detached, logical, thought? Is the Star Trek character Data capable of moral judgement? Hume was particularly motivated to oppose the rational egoism of Thomas Hobbes (covered in issue 17) in which all aspects of feeling are totally removed from moral judgement and reason for action becomes a matter of mathematical calculation of the likelihood of optimisation of self-interest. In contrast, moral sense theorists in general begin with the premise that moral judgements are emotional responses to the world around us, grounded in feeling more than in reason.

Hume's two central theses are set out in his A Treatise Of Human Nature:

1. The exercise of reason alone is insufficient to motivate action.

2. The notions of rationality and irrationality are not directly applicable to the emotions (or passions).

From these he derives his most famous, and often abridged or misquoted, statement, "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the work of Hume and his contemporaries. Notably, Phillipa Foot has been foremost amongst those who have recoiled from the strict detachment of reasons from desires in the consideration of moral judgements. She has argued that what is morally good or right is not a property that supplies reasons for action, but matters only when agents have desires conforming with morality's prescriptions. Thus, that an action is judged to be morally good does not supply a reason why I should act that way and morality has no intrinsic rational authority over our will. Indeed, it could be seen as quite irrational to do the "right thing" rather than follow our desires (be they egoistic or altruistic). Foot contends that moral judgements can only be hypothetical imperatives in that they give reasons for acting only in conjunction with other interests and desires. She believes that treating moral judgements as "reason-giving" is an illusion and no more categorical than similar choices in matters of etiquette or manners. For example, to refrain from an action because of a belief that it is wrong is no different from refraining from slurping one's soup from the spoon because it's just not the done thing or that it's bad manners.

This is undoubtedly a radical view and not without criticism. However, others in support of Foot, such as Simon Blackburn, go even further and suggest that values are entirely reflections of human sentiment, thus making ethics a branch of psychology. In general, the view that all moral sense theorists hold in common is that morality by itself is relatively inert in its capacity to affect action-motivating-desires. For example, there is nothing unreasonable about somebody who recognises that meat-eating is "speciesist" (to use a common term from animal ethics) and yet sees absolutely nothing compelling to refrain from doing it.

Moral sense theory begins with the assumption, in total contrast to Hobbes' full-blown selfish-man, that humans all share a natural tendency towards what Hutcheson called "benevolence" - a disinterested concern for others. Without this tendency, Hobbes was right: we are nothing more than individual, atomistic, egoistic gain-maximisers using our rational minds to realise that co-operative activity is in our own best interests. How can we ever hope to move beyond this state to one of universal benevolence? After all, our rational mind tells us ultimately to be selfish. However, if the moral sense theorists are right, then it is not inconceivable that we can realise Darwin's dream:

As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.

Hume was particularly interested in our capacity for sympathy. He believed that without such a capacity, moral action could not arise. Sympathy consists in the empathetic capacity of our emotional and rational faculties to anticipate, detect and respond to the mental states of others and thus undergo a mutual sharing of their experience.

It is important here to distinguish between sympathy for an individual and sympathy with an individual. We commonly think of the former when we think of sympathy: we are sympathetic to someone's particular problems in a way that is predicated upon the attribution of certain human characteristics such as innocence, courage or love. When we detect these characteristics we are moved emotionally to feel sorrow or joy or anger. We have sympathy for them. Writers and movie-makers draw upon this capacity of sympathy for others. I can think of no better example than the emotional response teased out of the audience to Sean Penn's portrayal of an otherwise despicable death-row inmate in Dead Man Walking.

Hume had in mind a wider and more basic notion of sympathy: a sympathy that we have with another individual when we are able to feel akin to the other and thus understand their being, their circumstances and their feelings. To have sympathy with another individual is to encompass in some way the inner life of the other. This innate virtue, however, is weak and needs nurturing and can easily be denied in its use to empathise with others. Nearly all accounts of atrocities performed by humans on other humans (such as through slavery, in concentration camps or with torture) emphasise how the perpetrators of such atrocities are only able to treat their victims in such a way because they do not see them as "people like us" and, thus, are not able to sympathise with them.

In recent years, the assumptions of the moral sense theorists have been explored more fully by ethologists, anthropologists, zoologists, and primatologists; perhaps most famously in Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson's When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals. Hence, Humean ideas about sympathy have begun to feature prominently in animal ethics, most notably in the work of Mary Midgley (Animals and Why They Matter). They have also been taken up by feminist philosophers arguing for a greater emphasis in moral philosophy on the virtues of compassion, love, and caring in contrast to the rationalists' stock-in-trade of moral concepts such as justice, fairness, and impartiality. More generally, moral sense theory has been taken up by all those wanting a naturalistic ethics: a theory that integrates our understanding of human morality with our growing understanding of the rest of the world in which we live. Its influence can be found most clearly in evolutionary psychology.

Hume and his contemporaries have generally been ignored in any historical review of normative moral theory for a number of reasons. Moral sense theory might seem to be an explanation of a metaethical kind of what moral judgements are, or it might seem to be an explanation of why moral philosophy should really be a branch of psychology or sociology. But does it provide any sort of explanation of what is right and wrong? Is all that it offers some sort of debunking of rationalism with the no further guidance as to how we should proceed from there? Does it lead to a kind of nihilism or subjectivism about the "truth" of moral judgements? These questions will be explored when we look specifically at the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, existential and postmodern ethics, and the applied areas of feminist and animal ethics.

Suggested reading
Hume On Morality, James Baillie (Routledge)
Ruling Passions, Simon Blackburn (Oxford University Press)
Virtues and Vices, Phillipa Foot (Cambridge University Press)