Two Different Grounds for Individual Rights

In moral philosophy and in current popular U.S. political discourse, I see a conflict between two moralities: (1) a morality that emphasizes the protection of individual liberties on the one hand (call this classical liberalism, individualism, libertarianism, or rights-centered morality), and (2) a morality that emphasizes the promotion of the common good on the other hand (call this communitarianism, collectivism, or social-welfare-centered morality). In popular U.S. political discourse, individualism might be represented by my friends who are most concerned that individual workers and business-owners be permitted to earn profit, keep profit, and have great freedom in what they do with their profit, while collectivism might be represented by my friends who are most concerned that everyone have enough food, shelter, and access to good education—including those whose economic situation does not permit them to secure these goods for themselves by earning personal profit through wage or investment income. I believe that (at least for the most part) all of my friends, on both sides of this conflict, think that the enactment of their own philosophy would tend to promote a society in which human beings are respected as having inherent moral worth as human beings (regardless of their socio-economic status), and to promote a sustainable and equitable economy in which resources are fairly distributed and in which there is enough for everyone’s basic needs to be met.

 

David B. Wong explores the relationship between community-centered and rights-centered moralities in his Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism (Oxford, 2006).

New Waves in Truth, edited by Cory D. Wright and Nikolaj J. L. L. Pedersen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) - Book Preview

New Waves in Truth (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) contains eighteen recent essays by twenty young researchers doing work in the theory of truth. The editors’ introduction shows significant diversity in the positions and directions taken by these 21^st century philosophers. One theme which runs throughout most of the volume is deflationism about truth. As the editors mention, “truth theorists have offered up a dizzying array of characterizations of deflationism” (3). The reader who wishes better to understand the current discussion of deflationism must realize the discussion is not simply comprised of the advocates and the critics of deflationism, arrayed in opposition to one another; each advocate and each critic may be talking about something rather different when they talk about deflationism. As a beginning, however, the reader may understand deflationism as the position that speakers predicate truth to statements for linguistic convenience and that truth is not a substantive property of propositions.

In addition to discussing deflationism, the contributors to this volume have written essays considering: the value of truth (i.e., What is truth good for? What makes the goal of believing what is true worthwhile?), different notions of what falsity is, whether truth is bivalent (i.e., Are true and false the only two truth values?), pluralist and monist theories of truth, truth in the domain of moral judgments and in the domain of color judgments, and the relationship between necessity and analyticity.

I anticipate the readings in this volume to be challenging and rather technical. I am somewhat interested in better understanding what deflationism is (and whether some form of “inflationism” might be superior after all), but I am particularly interested in the relevance of contemporary philosophical discussion about truth to ethics, theory of value, and to realist-pragmatist dialogue in epistemology and metaphysics.

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Editors’ Bios

Cory D. Wright received his Ph.D. in Philosophy & Cognitive Science from University of California San Diego in 2007, and teaches philosophy at California State University Long Beach. His research interests are primarily in Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, and Philosophy of Psychology. He has published recent articles on pluralism about truth.

Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen received his Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews in 2006, and does research at the University of California Los Angeles and at københavns universitet in Denmark. His research interests are primarily in Epistemology, Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Logic, and Metaphysics. He has also published recent articles on pluralism about truth.[1]

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[1] New Waves, x.

Word Journal: "moral relativism"

Moral relativism is the denial of moral universalism: that there is only one true morality.[1] If a morality is a (formal or informal) system of norms for judging choices and actions, policies and character-dispositions, and the like, as morally good or bad, right or wrong, virtuous or vicious—then moral relativism says two things: first, (1) more than one morality is correct, and second, (2) there are different, but equally correct moralities which judge the same act, by the same agent, in the same circumstances, as having opposite moral qualities.[2] That is: there are some acts that are morally right according to one correct morality and morally wrong according to another, equally correct morality.[3]

The proponent of moral relativism need not say that every actual morality is equally correct. Some moralities may be superior to others. This kind of relativism must deploy some set of norms to judge moralities, and (presumably) these norms will not be moral norms themselves. That is, the judgment that one morality is inferior that that another morality is superior is (presumably) not itself a moral judgment.[4]

According to the “pluralistic relativism” of David B. Wong, the truth conditions of a moral judgment (e.g. “It is morally right that Sarah obey her mother in this case”) vary from one morality to the next because the meanings of moral concepts (such as moral rightness) are relative to a morality’s norms specifying, for example, when the value of honoring parents is overridden by values of privacy and autonomy, or vice versa. Since different moralities place more or less relative importance on different values, what it means to have an overriding moral reason for an action is not the same in every correct morality. The moral judgments of parties representing different moralities may be in practical conflict while both being true because each applies a different concept of moral rightness. There are, however, universal constraints on moralities, derived from human nature and from the functions of morality. A culture’s concept of rightness could not be recognized as a proper moral concept if it did not meet these universal constraints.[5]

On Gilbert Harman’s version of moral relativism, the meaning of the moral concepts employed in a moral judgment is determined by an implicit agreement about moral norms between the one issuing the judgment and the agent whose action is being judged. This “pure version” of relativism does not allow moral judgments properly to be made about the actions of an agent who is outside of the judge’s community. In Harman’s view, only those who share the same implicit agreements about moral norms can be in genuine moral disagreement.[6]

The following are some objections that may be raised against moral relativism. (1) Moral relativism makes nonsense of claims of moral improvement: for example, the claim that the dominant American morality of today which recognizes the moral wrongness of slavery is an improvement over the dominant American morality of the 18^th century which regarded slavery as morally permissible. (2) Moral relativism cannot make sense of one’s making a moral judgment fallibilistically: that is, sincerely judging something is morally right while acknowledging that one’s judgment may be in error. (3) Moral relativism denies the phenomenon of genuine moral disagreement by relativizing moral truth: when parties disagree, says relativism, each one’s judgment is true relative to her own morality. Yet in real cases of moral disagreement each party judges the other to be mistaken categorically, and not just in error relative to one’s own moral standards. (4) Moral relativism undermines the normative force of morality: why should someone do what even her own community’s moral norms says she ought to do, if it is just as good for her to do what some other morality says she ought to do instead?

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[1] David B. Wong, Natural Moralities, p. xii.

[2] A theory that embraces the first claim but not the second would be a pluralistic but not a relativistic theory of morality. Suppose one holds that there is a correct deontological moral system and a correct consequentialist moral system, and that there is no rational basis for judging one system to be superior or more correct than the other. If it turns out, however, that there is no practical difference between the two systems: if, that is, exactly the same set of actions is morally right in each system, then this is pluralism without relativism.

[3] Not every act must be judged to have opposite moral qualities in different moralities. Moralities can be significantly different without being opposed to one another in every moral judgment.

[4] The cognitive expressivists Simon Blackburn, Mark Timmons, and Terry Horgan, however, seem to say there is no standard for judging another group’s morality that is not itself a moral standard. On this view, it seems difficult to justify the moral standard one applies to the judgment of another’s morality—or, indeed, to justify one’s positive judgment of one’s own morality. But perhaps one’s endorsement or adoption of a morality is not the kind of thing that admits of or requires justification?

[5] Wong, Natural Moralities, pp. 71-73.

[6] Wong, Natural Moralities, p. 74, interpreting Gilbert Harman, “Moral Relativism Defended,” Philosophical Review 84 (1975):3-22, and Harman’s contribution to Gilbert Harman and Judith Jarvis Thomson, Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity (Blackwell, 1996), pp. 32-46.

Nonviolence and Community Life: The Value of Accommodation

Another connection with regard to the value of accommodation for the stability of a society in which regular, serious ethical disagreement will (inevitably) occur (cf. Wong, Natural Moralities, p. 64).

I read this years ago online, and the sentence I've emphasized (in boldface) below has stuck in my head ever since: (This is from a Christian Century article on "Alternative Christian Communities" by Jason Byassee.

Something of a different animal from Reba is the Church of the Servant King in Eugene, Oregon. Many of its members are evangelicals who originally joined a parent congregation of the same name in 1978 in Gardena, California. The Eugene congregation was planted in 1987. Most of its key leaders have been living together in intentional community since the ‘78 founding.

Servant King started as an evangelical effort to live out scripture’s vision of the church. A commitment to nonviolence evolved slowly, partly as members read the works of Stanley Hauerwas, partly as they decided who would clean the bathrooms. Peace is not merely about a position on the war in Iraq; it is about how one relates to one’s neighbor, one’s spouse and one’s adversary in the community. Community leader Jon Stock points out that most intentional Christian communities that are not committed to nonviolence don’t survive, because when arguments erupt, someone has to win -- and the community loses. The Gardena congregation that planted Servant King has had such a rupture and is now on strained terms with its ecclesial offspring in Eugene.

(http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3286)

The Value of Accommodation and Ingredients for a Pro-Social Environment

In section 2.12 of Natural Moralities, David Wong argues an important value for a moral society is "accommodation", which is "to be committed to supporting noncoercive and constructive relations with others although they have ethical beliefs that conflict with one's own."

This point made me recall this segment from a Krista Tippett interview (from her program On Being, distributed by American Public Media) that I heard this summer: (http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/4726)

Ms. Tippett: So what does that look like. Creating a highly pro-social environment, what are some of the components of that?

Dr. Wilson: OK. We have been able to derive a list of designed features that cause just about any group to function well, including a school group. This is based a lot on the work of Elinor Ostrom who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2009. Her contribution was to show how groups of people attempting to manage their common resources, such as farmers or fishermen or forestry people managing forests, how they're capable of managing their affairs pretty well, but only if certain conditions are met. Those conditions are very conciliant with what we know from an evolutionary perspective about pro-sociality and cooperation.

So I'm going to reel off eight design features and then I'm going to add a couple of extra things to show you how we created a school program that works. Now as I'm listing these ingredients, ask yourself the question, how well does the typical school satisfy these ingredients, embody these design features, especially from the perspective of an at-risk student? OK?

Ingredient number one: There has to be a strong group identity and a sense of purpose for the group. So a person has to think that they're a member of a group and that group has to be a purpose that's clear to everyone. OK?

Number two: a proportional cost in benefits. It cannot be the case that some people do all the work and some people get all the benefits. There has to be some sense in which the benefits are scaled to what you do for the group. OK?

Number three: consensus decision-making. People hate being bossed around and told what to do, but they'll work hard to implement a consensus decision. Right there, ask yourself what the average at-risk kid thinks about whether they're being consulted about what they do in school.

Number four: monitoring. Most people are cooperative, but some people misbehave. Unless you can monitor that, then the group will not function well.

Number five: graduated sanctions. If someone does misbehave, you don't bring the hammer down immediately. You correct them in a nice friendly fashion, but you also must be prepared to escalate.

Number six: fast, fair conflict resolution. If there is a conflict, it must be resolved quickly and in a manner that's regarded as fair by all parties.

Number seven: local autonomy. In order for the group to do the previous things, they must have the ability to make their own decisions and to organize their group their way in order to make those decisions. There's another thing. If you look at the average school program, not only are the students not allowed to alter the routine, but even the teachers are not allowed even when they know it's not working.

Ms. Tippett: And the students are aware that the teachers are not allowed to alter their routine.

Dr. Wilson: Yeah. Finally number eight is called polycentric governance. When groups are nested within larger groups, then there must be coordination among groups which mirrors the same principles. Now there's two more principles that we added to this school group. The first was a safe and secure environment. Fear is good for helping you escape from a fearful situation over the short term. It's toxic over the long term. So therefore, if you don't feel safe and secure, if you're not basically in a playful, relaxed mood, you're not going to do the kind of learning that you need to do. And finally, learning in any species does not take place when all of the costs are in the present and all the benefits are in the future. So if you tell someone you'll get a good job if you slog four years through school …

Ms. Tippett: Right, or you'll get into college four years from now.

Dr. Wilson: Yeah. So there's a wonderful study by the psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who's best known for his work on "flow," peak psychological experience. In this study, he and his team followed a group of gifted high school students that were identified as gifted in the ninth grade, followed them through their high school and asked how many of them remained gifted by the 12th grade. What he discovered was, only the kids that enjoyed what they were doing on a day-to-day basis fulfilled their talents. So even the gifted kids had to have this short-term reward for what they were doing in order to realize the long-term reward. So if school isn't fun and something you want to go to on a day-to-day basis, then forget about it.

I think these ingredients for a pro-social environment have relevance to local, conference, and denominational church polity, as well as to political philosophy applied to other sorts of groups.

Reflections on The (Moral) Goodness of God

"Morality is partly a system of norms and reasons that human beings have developed in order to work and to live together. One of its functions is to regulate cooperation, conflicts of interest, and the division of labor and to specify the conditions under which some people have authority over others with respect to cooperative activities." (David B. Wong, Natural Moralities, p. 37)

It struck me as I read this sentence that some Christian philosophers might take issue with the anthropocentric notion that morality is something developed by human beings. They might rather say that morality is developed by God, for human beings. Or, would Christian philosophers have to disagree still further and deny that morality is for human society?

So, I ponder this:

If morality is for human society -- specifically, to enable cooperation bewteen individuals and groups by regulating conflicts of interest, etc. -- can God be moral?
And, does it make sense to talk about the moral goodness of God apart from consideration of God's relationships with human beings (or other created beings)?

To say God is (morally) good is to say, in part, that God's actions are limited. If there are no limits to divine activity (for example, if we cannot say that God would not torture an innocent person for no purpose but God's own pleasure), then God is not a morally good being. (It may well be the case that a good God does just whatever God wants to do, if all that God wants to do is good. So, it it need not be the case that there are limits external to God's desires or will or character-dispositions that place restrictions on how God acts).

I have difficulty imagining what a non-contigent Being, in a world that contains no other beings with which this Being might relate, might do that could be morally wrong. Such a solitary Being could not even have moral vices such as greed (there is nothing to covet) or selfishness or pride.

I am less certain in my intuitions on this point, but it also seems difficult to imagine what such a solitary Being might do that is morally good.

However, in Christian theology, we may draw upon the concept of the Social Trinity. Christian tradition does, indeed, use the concept of the Social Trinity to justify the theological claim that God is Love, in essence, and that God does not need to create any other beings in order to be a loving Being. InterPersonal relationships are part of the essence of the divine Being, and so God can be morally good in terms of these relationships. (The Father loves the Son, the Son loves and obeys and honors the Father, etc.)

In the Biblical narrative, the morality God gives to human society (specifically, the human society of the descendents of Israel gathered at Sinai) is a morality for human beings with the function of regulating their social relationships. The Christian philosopher might say that a good and true morality is one that reflects, or is analogous in the right way to, the social-ethical relationships within the economy of the Trinity. How does the moral goodness of God figure into the morality of ancient Israelite society? God does not stand apart from this society, but is one member of it (albiet a unique and important member--the one who calls the society into being in the first place: "The LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt"). The moral goodness of God, in this social context, has to do with God's fulfilling God's covenantal obligations to Israel. Throughout the pages of the Hebrew scriptures, human beings (Abraham, Moses, Job, and the psalmists, for example) call upon God to maintain His reputation, to act according to His good moral character (that is, for the sake of His Name). These human beings appeal not only to God's covenantal promises, but also to the inherent mercy, grace, and lovingkindness in God's character. So, the moral goodness of God does involve more than what is specified in the social contract of Sinai (or with Abraham or Noah). But these other character attributes of God which constitute God's moral goodness: mercy, lovingkindness, justice are also character attributes that have to do with the way God relates to God's People, or to the nations.

So, when we say God is (morally) good, we are (typically) describing the way God relates (socially) to human beings. We are describing limits to how God might and does act, in relation to creatures. An account of morality, therefore, that characterizes morality in terms of its functions to promote social cooperation and harmony in relationships between individuals and between groups, can sensibly be applied to statements about the goodness of God.

Methodological Naturalism and an expanding ontological boundary

"I believe it is best to embrace methodological naturalism as more open minded and more expansive [than substantive naturalism], while using it to evaluate the controversial hypotheses of substantive naturalism. It is more consistent with the fallibilism that follows from a view of ourselves as one species among many, learning more about the world as we continue probing it, and therefore not insisting on a fixed boundary around what there is. That boundary may need to be expanded in the course of inquiry, depending on what is needed to make sense of everything that is so in the world."

(David B. Wong, Natural Moralities, p. 32)

Almost thou persuadest me to be a methodological naturalist! :)

In principle, could methodological naturalism be compatible with an interpretation of religious experience (and other experience) that locates that experience in a supernaturalistic framework of meaning and ontology? Could the methodological naturalist believe there is a transcendent Being who stands outside of the single, natural world we all seem to occupy?

That is: can the naturalist be a theist?