Moral realism and Anti-Realism
This debate can be summarised with one rhetorical question “does anything really matter, or did we just evolve to think so? This question highlights two opposing groups. The moral realists and the antirealists. This paper shall first give an overview of the debate between moral realism and anti-realism. Secondly this paper shall review Street’s arguments levelled at the moral realist. Thirdly this paper shall explain how the anti-realist is able to escape the ‘Darwinian dilemma’. I shall then review the counter arguments to street’s arguments and finally I shall conclude.
Moral realism is essentially the belief that moral facts exist. They exist in the same way that there are scientific facts. This worldview teaches us that there can on be a binary choice for any given moral dilemma. An action can only be moral new mobilities paradigm ‘or immoral. For instance, paedophilia is simply wrong. This is a gut feeling of morality seems to drive our decisions and polarise our choices. One might even regard such a viewpoint as an objective fact. However, one cannot easily tell where these ‘moral facts’ come from. Can these moral facts be tested like scientific facts? If morality is based upon facts, then why is there debate as to what is moral? Andrew Fisher claims that
“Realism hold that moral judgements can be true or false, that sometimes they are true or false, that sometimes they are true and that what makes them true is independent from people’s (or groups of people’s) belief, judgements or desires.”
On the opposite side of the debate is ‘Moral antirealism ‘. This is the belief that ‘moral facts’ simply do not exist. Moral antirealists claim that moral propositions do not parallel any of the objective features of our world. Instead, these moral values are subjective rather than objective. Moral anti realists ask questions such as ‘how do we know what moral facts are?’ and ‘how do we know that moral facts even exist?’. A moral anti realist will either believe that moral facts do not exist, or they will believe that there is no way for us to know what the moral facts would be even if they existed. The anti-realist’s main argument is the ‘argument of strangeness’.
- Being a moral realist requires believing in moral facts.
- If moral facts existed, then they would be very strange.
- We should only believe in strange things if we have good reason.
- We don’t have good reasons to believe in moral facts
- Therefore moral realism is false
In fact, when one describes a ‘moral fact’ such as ‘it is wrong to murder’, one is actually claiming how they world should be. This ‘moral fact’ is essentially describing a perfect world in which no murder takes place. In reality murders do happen. These moral facts do not describe they way that the world actually is and so they cannot be thought of as regular facts. Regular facts are things that have been proven to be true.
Perhaps the majority of society ascribes to moral realism. However, Sharon Street has attempted to refute the existence of moral realism. Street’s primary argument is as follows; “Evolutionary forces have played a tremendous role in shaping the content of humans evaluative attitudes.” Essentially Street argues that we have moral values due to our evolutionary nature and that there are no objective moral facts in our world. Streets argues that a moral realist can either accept or deny that there is a relation between evolutionary influences and independent evaluative truths.
Street argues that one must strive to find the origin of facts and beliefs. Street goes on to say that learning the origins of a belief can “sometimes diminish one’s confidence in the belief or bolster it.” Learning that the origin of these facts and beliefs can either strengthen them or weaken them is foundational to Street’s arguments.
Street continues by presenting the contrast of “undermining verses vindicating genealogies” Street begins with undermining genealogy. Street states that:
“If the causal process that gave rise to one’s belief in that proposition is such that there is no reason to think that it would lead one to form true beliefs about the subject matter in question- and if there is no other reason to believe that proposition – a reason of which one was not previously aware-then one should suspend belief in that proposition” (906, Norton)
Street continues with the vindication of genealogy. Essentially if one the origin of one’s belief is in fact a justified reason, then one should be more confident in this belief. However, this causes the reader further question; What actually is a good or justified reason for a proposition?
Street continues with introducing ‘evaluative hunches and their geology’ (907, Norton).
- The fact that something would promote one’s survival is a reason to do it.
- The fact that something would promote one’s health is a reason to do it.
- The fact that something would help one’s child is a reason to do it
- the fact that someone is altruistic is a reason to admire, praise and reward him/her
- the fact that someone was unfaithful. (907, Norton)
These claims could be considered to be relatively common as we see many societies practice these social norms and regard them as fact. However, if one were to consider each moral ‘fact’ in the opposite manner it would seem absurd. Humanity seems swayed to one side of this binary problem. It makes sense to assume that self-preservation has influenced our sense of morality.
If a member of humanity were to die, then surely, we are one step closer to extinction. Extinction is the primary threat to all life and so evolution indirectly helps prevent this. Therefore, one can assume that evolution is responsible for how we form our moral structure. The question is then, does this ‘causal process’ allow one to ‘form a true belief’? If so then one’s belief is vindicated, however, if one cannot form true a belief then one’s view is undermined. We tend to have a core judgment within us that dictates whether or not the means by which we have arrived at a true belief is legitimate.
For instance, we appeal to authority e.g. Teachers, parents, books, academic papers and ancient philosophers. One might argue that founding true beliefs through these mediums is legitimate/true. However, the use of mediums such as fortune tellers, children and serial killers would not be viable means to form true beliefs. However, Norton’s introduction states “the nature of this subject matter of what is valuable and how to live- is itself a highly contested issue” (909, Norton). Now the focus lies on the stark differences between the ‘mind-independent’ and the ‘mind-dependent’. For instance, do we believe something is important simply because we believe it to be so (mind-dependent), or is there some intangible value of importance that disregards our views of importance(mind-independent)? Now to focus once again upon the analogy of evolution. If our would follows a mind independent perspective, then there is no guarantee that humanity would ever be able to determine what moral truths to follow. This is because these moral truths would exist independently of humanities worldview. Just because humanity successfully reproduced does not entail that we have a solid understanding/knowledge of moral truths. Humanity has opted for the preservation of its species and so humanity has many offspring, however, this does not relate to ‘truth or falsity’ (910, Norton). Therefore, holding the ‘mind independent’ perspective is invalid as there is no reason to suggest humanity can determine what is true or false as it is independent of humanity.
Moving now onto ‘mind dependent’ truths. This belief completely eliminates the problem of a beliefs true/ legitimate origins. This is because our true moral beliefs are founded within the mind. This is because the mind creates the value. “Value is instead understood as something created or constructed by those attitudes” (911, Norton). Essentially, the mind deems anything it wants to be ‘valuable’ and therefore the means are irrelevant.
Street claims that it is much more likely for one to claim that the mind independent perspective is true due to the fact that the evolutionary theory has been backed up in multiple fields of science. The Norton introduction claims that society prefers the mind dependent perspective as our values and morals are preserved rather than completely obliterating them. “I claim that in the case of the evolutionary origins of valuing, the weakest link in the overall picture- the thing that must go-is a mind independent conception of value”. In essence, the only things that matter are the things we hold close to ourselves. There likely isn’t a universal rulebook that states “murder is wrong” yet we each hold values attributed to this claim on an individual internal scale not independent of us.
I believe that streets argument is very convincing. I see no room for a mind independent perspective as it can be easily undermined by the evolutionary theory, my opinions remained in line with Streets arguments.
To conclude, the anti-realist perspective has a strong grounding. It seems reasonable to claim that we have moral values that a re derived from our evolution. It makes sense for a human to develop a strong moral standing against killing other humans. I personally believe that the anti-realist argument is strong as her premise assumes that Darwinian’s theory is valid, and I believe this is a strong grounding for her arguments. Streets concludes that oral realism is incompatible with natural selection. This drives me to conclude that our morals values that we cling to are objectively false. I also believe that none of the realist counter arguments adequately debunk Street’s arguments against the existence of moral beliefs. However, this is not to say her arguments cannot be strengthened.