Part 1: Travis Talks is right about some things
- If someone says something horrible like: "The Holocaust was good", it's important to distinguish between the subjective proposition "I approve of the Holocaust" (which is a true statement for a Nazi) versus the objective proposition "The Holocaust was good in such a way that if someone doesn't find the Holocaust to be good then they are mistaken" (which is a false statement). Failing to make this distinction can lead to 'normative entanglement' (see: https://www.lanceindependent.com/p/normative-entanglement-a-new-name-for-an-old-rhetorical-trick).
- Agent Relativism vs Appraiser Relativism: The former view says that what is in fact right or wrong is relative to individual standards. The latter view says that when a person says "x is wrong", they just mean "I disapprove x." So we can say that agent relativism is normative (about what is in fact morally right or wrong) while appraiser relativism is descriptive (about what people in fact mean when they make moral claims).
As the post shows, many objections to subjectivism trade on failures to understand distinctions such as these.
Note: My metaethical views are very much in progress; this is an exercise to help work out my thoughts. Currently, I don't accept the existence of categorical imperatives or irreducible normative properties, but I do accept objective value facts (facts about what is good, bad, better, valuable, worthless, etc.) and the objective descriptive truth of some 'should' and 'ought' claims. So I'm currently convinced of some form of descriptive moral realism while unconvinced of prescriptive moral realism. My lack of an acceptance of irreducible normative properties is something I have in common with subjectivists, and it may turn out that what I say here is compatible with some form of subjectivism or, like the objections responded to in the Substack post, trades on misunderstandings on what subjectivists are actually committed to. One of the core issues of this discussion, one I will be revisiting in future posts, is what it means to make a judgment, how our experiences relate to judgments, and what it means for the truth of a claim to be dependent or independent of judgment.
Part 2: Why I don't believe in subjectivism
This leads into an important quote from the Substack post:
"Subjectivism is not in the business of telling you what sorts of things are right or wrong. It's in the business of telling you what people are doing when they say things are right or wrong."
And what are people doing when they claim that an action is morally right or wrong, per subjectivism? They are voicing personal disapproval, and, key point here: They are not voicing a recognition of the stance-independent rightness or wrongness of an action.
And that's my key point: I am voicing a recognition of the stance-independent rightness or wrongness of an action when I make a moral claim.
Even if some people (or even if most people, or even if all other people besides me) mean "I disapprove of x" when they say "x is wrong", I am an exception to this description. That's not what I mean when I say "x is wrong."
Here is what I take to be a non-subjective, objective, judgment-independent, stance-independent (these are all synonyms) claim:
(S) Kaitlin Armstrong should not have killed Moriah Wilson.
(W) Kaitlin Armstrong killing Moriah Wilson was wrong (incorrect, not right, mistaken, evil).
(Free will stuff: Is Armstrong blameworthy in the sense that she is liable for just deserts in the form of retributive punishment? I believe not, because I reject the notion of free will. Is Armstrong morally blameworthy in the sense that I can conclude that Armstrong qua experiencer is bad or evil? I don't think it makes any sense to view a person as a subject of experiences in evaluative terms. Is Armstrong critically blameworthy in the sense that what she has [in terms of virtue, reasoning, wisdom, reasons for actions, etc.] is of poor quality? Yes; it does make sense to view the accidental properties of persons in evaluative terms [e.g. my athleticism is an accidental property of me and it's entirely warranted to view its quality as, uh, non-Olympic, to put it nicely]. Is Armstrong qua experiencer unlucky to have these things in poor quality? Yes.)
When philosophers talk about tortured babies or murder, I bet that they usually aren't trying to imagine what these things look like. To make things a bit easier to imagine for us, here are a few details of the Wilson murder:
- Armstrong apparently killed Wilson out of jealousy.
- Wilson was shot twice in the head and once in the chest.
- Prosecutor Rick Jones says Wilson screamed in terror before being shot, based on surveillance footage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15DY0NcfyLM).
- Caitlin Cash, friend of Moriah Wilson, said the following in her victim impact statement: "So many people in this room have lost so much. I'm angry. At you. At the utter tragic nature. At the senselessness. At not being able to hear Mo's voice again. I feel deep sadness for the road ahead" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go186wdXS04).
- Moriah Wilson's mother said the following: "I hate what you did to my beautiful daughter. It was very selfish and cowardly. That violent act on May 11th. It was cowardly because you never chose to face her woman to woman in a civil conversation. She would have listened. She was an amazing listener. She would have cared about your feelings."
- A KVUE article describes how Moriah Wilson's brother (Matt Wilson) broke into tears when he took the stand and was asked to speak about his sister (https://www.kvue.com/article/news/crime/kaitin-armstrong-trial-closing-arguments/269-7d7750ae-13e7-477e-a740-8ee80c09c796). Per that article, Matt Wilson said: "My sister had her life taken from her for no reason at all. She'll never ride a bike again, she'll never get married, never buy a home, have kids, never meet someone she loves ... I and my parents will never be able to see that happen and have her enjoy that life and build that life."
- After Armstrong was sentenced to 90 years in prison, Moriah Wilson's father said the following to the press (https://www.courttv.com/title/mo-wilsons-dad-there-really-are-no-winners-here/): "There really are no winners here. This is not a time for celebration, but a time for prayer. A time to pray for our family, our friends, the Armstrong family, and their friends. This sad story is a perfect example of why integrity and honesty are crucial in our personal relationships, and how dishonesty can often lead to unintended consequences. Selfish manipulation, jealousy, and hatred never lead to positive outcomes. Violence is never a good way to solve personal issues. In fact, violence doesn't solve anything. It only leads to more suffering."
It's one thing to talk about murder in the abstract. It's another to talk about Kaitlin Armstrong murdering Moriah Wilson and the horror, tragedy, and thoughtlessness of the event, and the permanent damage done to the families and communities involved.
Do I personally disapprove of Armstrong's killing of Wilson? Yes, and if you were to ask me why, I would give an answer beyond "I don't like it" or "It goes against my values", and there would be a further answer to the question of why I give that answer rather than another. But more on that later. First, when I say "Kaitlin Armstrong killing Moriah Wilson was wrong", do I merely mean to say that "I personally disapprove of Armstrong's killing of Wilson"?
Not at all. Instead, I mean to say that "Kaitlin Armstrong killing Moriah Wilson fails to further [goal]."
We can substitute [goal] with something like "the goal of maximizing flourishing."
This is why when I make a claim of the pattern "x is wrong", I am not making an internal, subjective claim about my values or feelings. I am making an external, objective claim about how an action fails to further a goal.
It's almost certainly the case that Armstrong had a goal of living well, of not going to prison (she tried to evade capture multiple times), of not facing the kind of social backlash one faces when one becomes a murderer, and so on. In that case, by killing Moriah, Armstrong failed at her own goals.
So <Kaitlin Armstrong should not have killed Moriah Wilson> = <Killing Moriah Wilson fails to further the goals of living well, not going to prison, increasing one's virtue, building a good reputation and legacy for oneself, etc.>
And if Armstrong had empathetic goals (which Armstrong did not have), then killing Moriah Wilson fails to further the goal of maximizing the flourishing of Wilson and her family and friends, as well as that of Armstrong's own family and friends. If you understand the goodness of Moriah Wilson's (etc.) would-be flourishing, then you will have such an empathetic goal. If these empathetic goals were required to achieve Armstrong's more fundamental goals (say, the goal of not experiencing the judgment and shame of being on trial for murder), then Armstrong should have had these empathetic goals. In my view, 'should' picks out the action that best furthers a goal or is necessary to further a goal. So I'm not committing myself to some mysterious, irreducible normative property; I see 'should' statements as being descriptively true or false, describing which actions are best or necessary at furthering or achieving a goal.
So the killing of Moriah Wilson fails to maximize flourishing, and that is a true statement about the world and not just about myself or my personal feelings. It's true irrespective of anyone's judgment of its truth. When I say "the murder of Moriah Wilson fails to maximize flourishing", I am not saying "Armstrong killing Moriah Wilson? Yuck!", like the emotivist would claim, nor am I merely saying "While killing Moriah Wilson was truly good for Armstrong, at least in the moment if not in the aftermath, I personally disapprove of Armstrong killing Moriah Wilson and I view the act as murder." Rather, I am saying "Just as the world works such that, for example, light travels faster than sound, the world works such that Armstrong's killing of Moriah Wilson was bad, wrong, mistaken, incorrect – a failure."
The goals related to flourishing are so typical and obvious that we often assume that people have them. Indeed, if someone did not have the goal of living well, not going to prison, avoiding suffering, and so on, that would be hard to believe. Certainly, I have these goals, so if I were to murder someone in a similar fashion as Armstrong did, I would be failing my goals.
So there is a risk of goal-projection here: When someone says that a person ought not have done something, they may be projecting their own goals onto whoever is the subject of their moral criticism. Maybe Armstrong's goal was purely "kill Moriah." Relative to the goal of killing Moriah, Armstrong should kill Moriah. But how does the goal of killing Moriah relate to Armstrong's more fundamental goals? If the goal of killing Moriah fails to further a more fundamental goal, then the goal of killing Moriah is not a goal worth pursuing. Succeeding in that goal would be to fail in a more important one.
So we must distinguish which goals we are talking about:
(1) Killing Moriah Wilson fails
to further Armstrong's goals (immediate and/or ultimate).
(2) Killing Moriah Wilson fails
to further my goals related to flourishing and I am projecting my goals onto Armstrong.
(3) Killing Moriah Wilson fails to further the goals Armstrong would have were she to have the goals a typical person has.
(4) Killing Moriah Wilson fails to further the goals Armstrong would have were she to have the goals a wise person would have in her situation.
When I make the claim:
(S) Kaitlin Armstrong should not have killed Moriah Wilson.
Is (1), (2), (3), or (4) the correct interpretation of what I mean?
In terms of immediate vs ultimate goals, certainly Armstrong had an immediate goal of killing Wilson, and killing Wilson successfully furthered (achieved) that goal. But given Armstrong's more ultimate goal of not going to prison (etc.), killing Wilson failed with respect to that (those) goal(s).
With 'ultimate goal' specified for 1, it's possible for all four interpretations to be correct at the same time. All four can be objectively true.
Interpretation (2) by itself does not secure the truth of S; if (2) is the only correct interpretation of S when I utter S, then S is false and, to preserve its truth, must be changed to:
(S2) I should not kill Moriah Wilson (within the same or similar context in which Armstrong killed Wilson).
So to argue that S is true is to argue that (1), (3), or (4) is true.
But now reconsider:
(W) Kaitlin Armstrong killing Moriah Wilson was wrong (incorrect, not right, mistaken, evil).
What is the wrong-maker here? One option is that the wrong-maker is the failure to further a goal in one of the above senses. But I can't make sense of an objective notion of 'wrong' in any way other than the same wrongness as when someone holds a false belief.
So a better option is that the wrong-maker is the false belief behind Armstrong's action, or any false belief that Armstrong is committed to in virtue of performing the action. What is Armstrong's held or committed false belief behind her choice to kill Wilson? A number of possibilities:
"This is worth doing"
"The goodness of this action outweighs its badness"
"This action maximizes flourishing"
"This will make the world a better place"
"This will make me happy in the long-term"
"This will make me happier than I would be otherwise"
"This will further my ultimate goals"
"I won't regret this"
If Armstrong's ultimate goal is in fact: "Kill Moriah Wilson", then interpretation (1) is false. But a) It seems impossible for that to be Armstrong's ultimate goal, and b) Even if it were Armstrong's ultimate goal, the truth of interpretations (2)–(4) is preserved.
But it seems to me that the problem with interpretation (2) can be extended to interpretations (3) and (4). That is, to preserve the truth of (3) and (4), we'd need to similarly change them, respectively, to:
(S3) A typical person should not kill Moriah Wilson (within the same or similar context in which Armstrong killed Wilson).
(S4) A wise person should not kill Moriah Wilson (within the same or similar context in which Armstrong killed Wilson).
If this is right, then for S to be true, interpretation (1) needs to be true. While it's impossible to know what Armstrong believed at the time of the murder, it seems nearly certain that she believed in false beliefs or was committed to false beliefs at the time as noted above, and it's the wrongness of these false beliefs that grounds the wrongness of the action. So even if interpretations (2)–(4) fail to secure the truth of S, interpretation (1) is easily defended.
Someone might wonder what difference there might be in claiming that Kaitlin Armstrong killing Moriah Wilson was wrong versus Kaitlin Armstrong killing Moriah Wilson was evil.
My answer is that 'evil' in this context just means 'wrong' (mistaken, incorrect, holding false beliefs or being committed to false beliefs) within a moral context—a context of consequences, intentions, and virtues—where the happiness, pain, flourishing, and suffering of experiencers is at stake. We especially associate 'evil' with someone's intentions and character; so Kaitlin Armstrong killing Moriah Wilson was evil = Kaitlin Armstrong killing Moriah Wilson in the context in which she did betrays Armstrong's vicious character and intentions.
Part 3: Clarifying thoughts around goals and 'should' statements
When a typical person says
"X person should not have done Y", it's not clear what interpretation
they would point out as their intended meaning. For all I know, most
people don't care about what a person's actual ultimate goals are and instead care mainly about what a person's ultimate goal would be
if that person were smart, well-informed, empathetic, and had true
beliefs about the goodness and badness of things. So something like
interpretation (4) might be a more popular interpretation. The problem with landing on interpretation (1) as I have is that
the truth of "X person should not have done Y" literally depends on that person's actual ultimate goals. So consider:
(H) Hitler should not have systematically killed millions of Jews.
If Hitler's ultimate goal required systematically
killing millions of Jews, then H is false under
interpretation (1). It's plausible that Hitler's ultimate goals were something like "maximize flourishing for humanity", in which case H is true under interpretation (1). But let's explore what happens when interpretation (1) is false.
When it comes to the truth of 'should' statements we have to keep goal-relativity in mind, and while 'should' statements depend on goals, we can argue that some goals are better than others. Even if H
is false relative to Hitler's goals, Hitler's goals were themselves insane and evil. So H can be reinterpreted as:
(H*) Hitler should not have had goals that required the systematic killing of millions of Jews.
Again, because
'should' statements only make sense in the context of some goal, H* can
only be true if there is some more fundamental goal of which the
subgoal of systematic killing of millions of Jews
fails to further, but that might not apply in Hitler's case. So we have to reinterpret farther:
(Hm)
Hitler's goals were based on misunderstandings about race, about human
flourishing, about the goodness and badness of things, and so on.
(H**) Imagine Hitler had goals that were not based on these misunderstandings. Relative to these goals, Hitler should not have systematically killed millions of Jews.
But not only should Hitler not systematically kill millions of Jews relative to goals not based on misunderstandings, Hitler could not have done so if he had had different goals. Given that Hitler did in fact kill millions of Jews, Hitler did in fact have at least immediate goals that required the killing of millions of Jews. H** has us imagine a counterfactual (Hitler having different goals than he did) the truth of which is not relevant to the truth of H (as the truth of H depends on Hitler's actual goals under interpretation (1)).
I agree that the word 'should' is often interpreted as approval. So if I say "Hitler should have systematically killed millions of Jews", it sounds like I'm saying "I approve of Hitler systematically killing millions of Jews." But that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is "Killing millions of Jews furthered Hitler's ultimate goals, and not killing millions of Jews would have failed to further Hitler's ultimate goals." But I would also say "I do not approve of Hitler's ultimate goals" and that "Hitler's ultimate goals were based on misunderstandings."
So (H) Hitler should not have systematically killed millions of Jews is not necessarily true in the sense that systematically killing millions of Jews failed to further Hitler's ultimate goals, but is true in the sense that (Hm)
Hitler's goals were based on misunderstandings about race, about human
flourishing, about the goodness and badness of things, and so on and that systematically killing millions of Jews fails to further the goals of a person whose goals are not based on such misunderstandings.
So when it comes to:
(Hw) Hitler was wrong to systematically kill millions of Jews.
Hitler wasn't necessarily wrong in the sense of holding or being committed to false beliefs relative to how systematically killing millions of Jews will further his ultimate goals, but Hitler was wrong in the sense of holding or being committed to false beliefs when it comes to the goals themselves. The wrongness of the beliefs, either held or committed to, that ground Hitler's goals grounds the wrongness of the actions taken to further those goals.
Part 4: Intrinsic goods ⟶ Value facts ⟶ Descriptive moral realism
Quoting the Substack post: "To my mind realists have a very strange psychology. It’s as if they don’t intrinsically disvalue suffering itself - rather they only instrumentally disvalue it insofar as it’s out of accord with the stance-independent moral facts."
This is a curious thing to say, because I would think that it's the intrinsic badness of pain and intrinsic goodness of happiness that provides an argument for axiological realism—the view that there are objective value facts—which in turn provides an argument for some kind of moral realism (not necessarily a "categorical imperative / irreducible normative property" kind of moral realism, which I don't accept, but a descriptive kind of moral realism where moral facts are grounded in value facts, which are themselves descriptive).
(It's also a curious thing to say because it sounds like the author is saying that realists who "only instrumentally disvalue pain insofar as it's out of accord with stance-independent moral facts" are making an objective mistake about value. So are there objective mistakes about value? If yes, then isn't that an objective value fact?)
Consider what Sharon Rawlette says (The Feeling of Value, Dudley & White, 2016):
"Pain is the most frequently cited example of something that is objectively, intrinsically bad. The badness of torture . . . is probably the moral value the most easily agreed upon and the most frequently appealed to in arguments for the self-evidence of certain moral truths. There is something about the experience of pain that convinces many people of moral realism. . . . I believe that part of the usual phenomenology of pain is an instantiation of the phenomenal quality of undesirability—of badness—and that instantiation of this quality is bad no matter what judgments anyone makes about it. Experience of this quality is what I believe leads many people to assert with such confidence that pain is objectively bad." (75)
She then goes on to defend the idea that there is a quale of badness. Shockingly, some philosophers attack the notion of intrinsic badness. But I won't go into that here. Because the topic at hand is subjectivism, a subjectivist can agree that there really is a quale of badness, but will want to say that it is only subjectively true that pain is intrinsically bad. Indeed, they might say that the notion of intrinsicality used here necessarily includes the notion of subjectivity. How could pain be objectively bad?
Rawlette helps us untangle what it means to say something is objectively bad:
"On my view, moral facts are not mind-independent. They are quite dependent on whether people are in the mental states of pleasure or pain. . . . However, on my view and on these other realist views, facts about the goodness of pleasure and the badness of pain . . . are judgment-independent. These views say . . . pain is pro-tanto bad, and . . . this badness . . . exists independently of whether anyone judges it to be there." (15)
So the subjectivist is right that my pain is subjective in the sense that my pain depends on my subjectivity; my pain depends on my mind. More generally, goodness and badness depends on minds. But whether an instance of pleasure or pain has the qualities it does, that doesn't depend on anyone's judgment, not even on the judgment of the subject of that pleasure or pain. Experiences are pre-judgment; indeed, where could our judgments come from, or be based on, if not our experiences? The truth of the statement "Chocolate tastes good" is judgment-dependent (put another way: its truth is relative), but the experience of chocolate tasting good is not judgment-dependent (and the truth that such an experience took place and had the qualities it had is absolute and not relative).
Case in point, even if animals are not capable of the kinds of evaluative judgments that we humans make, the pain of animals still has the quality that it does, including the quality of badness.
Part 5: Truthseeker objection to anti-realism and the problem of undergenerated reasons
Quoting the Substack post: "I find the idea that my goals must somehow be ordained by the universe in order to act on them profoundly bizarre."
When I hear this, alarm bells go off in my head. I'm sensitive to any anti-truth sentiments; being a genuine truthseeker, in my mind, comes first above all things in philosophy.
A (perhaps not-so-charitable) interpretation of this might be:
"I find the idea that I ought to act according to what's true profoundly bizarre."
Or:
"I find the idea that I ought to be bothered by the fact that my actions are based on false beliefs profoundly bizarre."
I worry that anti-realist views imply that an omniscient, perfectly rational person who acts purely according to the facts can commit atrocities, say, a mass shooting. I'm convinced that an omniscient, perfectly rational person who acts purely
according to the facts cannot commit a mass shooting. (Call this the "truthseeker objection" to anti-realism, an objection I have yet to see a good response to.)
This brings me back to the question of why I disapprove of Armstrong's murder of Wilson. As I understand it, this gets to the "undergeneration of reasons" objection to moral anti-realism (see: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/#UndArg – strictly speaking this relates to internal vs external reasons, though reasons themselves relate to realism vs anti-realism).
Consider a bus driver who drives children to an elementary school each morning during the school semester. The bus driver is aware that there is a cliff near the school, and that if the driver wanted, they could, one morning, drive the bus off the cliff and kill themselves and all the children inside.
Nearly all bus drivers nearly all the time would not choose to do this given the chance. Question: Why not? Why wouldn't I drive the bus off the cliff killing myself and dozens of children in the process given the chance?
Explanation 1: Evolution. Evolution selects for pro-survival, pro-social behaviors and attitudes, and that explains why I have the pro-survival and pro-social behavior of not driving the bus off a cliff.
Explanation 2: Social programming. I have been raised by loving parents and a healthy social and psychological environment, instilling within me a strong sense of empathy, compassion, and a desire to do the right thing. Maybe I've been indoctrinated to believe that evil people go to hell when they die, or that only good people go to heaven when they die. So out of fear of hell, or desire for heaven, or out of empathy and compassion, or a desire to make my parents proud or what have you, any of these things can explain why I wouldn't drive the bus off the cliff.
As far as I can tell (an anti-realist can correct me if I'm mistaken), anti-realists take it for granted that something like explanation 1 or 2 (or both) must be true and that's all there is to say about why people do what they do. This undergenerates reasons. There's another explanation, one that I introspect and see to be true in my case (and perhaps true in addition to aspects of explanations 1 and/or 2):
Explanation 3: Sight. I see how goodness and badness work. I see how death is a depriving evil, depriving the one who dies from future good experiences. I see how my death would deprive me from future good experiences, and how the deaths of the children would deprive them of future good experiences. I see how I don't know what the future of these children holds, or how much they will suffer or flourish, and so I cannot assume that these deaths would save more than deprive. I see how flourishing works like a web, and how our actions reverberate like ripples in a pond, and how the deaths of these children would tear apart their families and their communities, and would even bring a touch of despair to strangers who hear the story. I understand the intrinsic badness of pain, and the sheer pain of loss, grief, and lost optimism that would occur for the surviving families, leaving wounds that would never truly heal. I understand the goodness of flourishing and the badness of suffering, and by this understanding I have the goal to maximize goodness and minimize suffering. I understand how driving the bus off the cliff would fail to further this goal, and by this I understand why it's true that I ought not drive the bus off the cliff, and I understand why denying this truth is to say something false; its truth is not relative and does not depend on anyone's judgment.
This might lead to an argument in favor of external reasons, with an external reason being a theoretical answer to a 'why' question that would answer the question in a true and relevant way grounded in truths external to one's own feelings.
Given the 'why' question "Why don't you drive the bus off a cliff?", I could answer "Because I don't feel like it", and while that answer might be true and relevant, it wouldn't be grounded in truths external to my feelings. But the answer given under Explanation 3 is grounded in truths external to my feelings: truths about the goodness and badness of things and about what experiences certain people would have under different circumstances.
If an anti-realist says "There are no external reasons", and by that they mean "If someone is asked 'Why don't you drive the bus off a cliff', they will not be able to give a true and relevant answer grounded in truths external to personal feelings", then the anti-realist says something false. I can, and just did, give a true and relevant answer grounded in truths external to my personal feelings to that question.
In conclusion, when I say "X action is wrong", I am not primarily making a claim about my own personal preferences, values, likes, dislikes, opinions, or feelings. I am claiming to recognize the truth of the goodness and badness of the actions involved, whether and how an action furthers a goal, and the truth of the falsity of the beliefs that ground the actions and goals involved. These truths remain true regardless of anyone's judgment. It is from this recognition that my disapproval originates, and I can introspect and see that this recognition is part of, and even primary to, the explanation as to why I disapprove of the actions I conclude to be wrong. Explanations of my disapproval that don't include my recognition of external truths undergenerate reasons for my disapproval.