Chapter 2: The Nature of Moral Disagreement Today and the Claims of Emotivism
MacIntyre begins by furthering the claim that one of the most notable facets of our current moral debate is the fact that not only do the arguments never seem to end, but the way in which they are formatted seems to make it impossible for them to end, at least in a satisfying, rational way.
He goes on to provide 3 examples of common arguments illustrating this point, with their most common antagonistic views.
Argument 1: Just War
He then goes on to claim that there are three main characteristics that each set of arguments has in common with the others.
Firstly, he states that each of the positions articulated is logically complete in and of itself. There are no obvious contradictions, and there is no obvious way to dethrone one position and replace it with another using reason alone. The main difference in them lies not in this enumeration, but rather in the initial principles or "norms" that they begin from.
Therefore, any sustained argument over one of these three positions will eventually devolve into a shouting match about which set of "goods" should take precedence over the other (for example, justice and innocence vs success and survival, in the case of the just war argument).
He also claims that the observable "shrillness" of so many of these arguments comes not only from the fact that there is no reasonable solution to be found, but also from the fact that we each, at our core, do not have a rational reason internal to ourselves for choosing a given position over another.
Therefore, each person advancing one position over another knows, deep down, that they also lack any good reason for their position, which results in a desire to overcompensate by simply being louder, or more "shrill".
A second characteristic of all of the above positions is the fact that they all take great pains to APPEAR impersonal, rational, and reasonable. This, when paired with the first observation, creates a frustrating paradox out of most of these arguments (according to MacIntyre).
Even if there is no possible way for a rational triumph of one position over another to be reached, it begs the question of why all sides of every argument think that it is so important that they at least pretend to be seeking one, even if none of them are apparently able to.
MacIntyre goes on to claim that his third point, the fact that each of the positions articulated has its origin point in an entirely different school of thought from the others, is in fact related to the confusion caused by the contradiction of the first two characteristics.
He doesn't really get into the 'how' or the 'why' of relationship just yet, but instead promises it is still coming (while continuing to make self-deprecating comments about the validity of his thought experiment).
The next point he goes on to make from here is that part of the origin of this confusion is what he calls the "unhistorical treatment of moral philosophy". Basically he is claiming that current philosophers are failing to view the works of the great thinkers of the past in their proper context, and so cannot truly appreciate them.
Then he takes a bit of a divergence from his line of thought to face the accusation that he is levying an unfounded criticism on current moral discourse. Namely, the claim that it should be held to some higher standard, and the implication that there was a point in time where competing moral claims could actually be resolved rationally, and that they have not always and forever, by their nature, been relegated to matters of volume and emotion.
This is apparently the claim of Emotivism, a school of thought advanced in England from 1903 to 1937, and it states that all statements of moral evaluation are really just statements of personal preference.
Emotivism, according to MacIntyre, makes this blanket claim about all value judgements that can be made, ever.
If it is true then, the "problem" the chapter opens with really isn't a problem after all, but simply the nature of the beast. MacIntyre disagrees with their claims however, and sets about dismantling them.
His first quibble with the theory is that if all more claims are really just statements of feeling or emotion, then we should be able to classify what sort of feelings they convey. However, the best that can be managed is a circular claim that goes roughly as follows:
The second charge against Emotivism is that its entire foundation is to equate two types of statement which are, by the function of their use in our language, meant to contrast each other. We tend to define the difference between opinion statements and moral judgements precisely by virtue of their not being each other.
His third claim against this principle is the fact that it does not even lay out its own claims very well. While the theory is supposed to be making a statement about types of sentences, according to MacIntyre it is actually making a claim about the USE of sentences, since the conveying of emotion through a sentence depends much more on how the sentence is used (context, delivery, etc.) than the actual word choice. (He has some good examples here, but far funnier ones are pretty easy to conjure up).
If however, this second, more accurate claim were actually true, that would mean that somehow the meaning behind moral value statements and their practical use in society had become drastically divorced without people realizing it.
When faced with this challenge, MacIntyre decides to back out of the rabbit hole a bit and instead look at the specific historical and cultural context that Emotivism arose from, to see if an explanation for its logical inconsistencies could be found there.
Since it has a specific origin point, MacIntyre asks the question of whether it was perhaps not an account of all moral discourse ever, but rather of the moral discourse prevalent in the time and place in which it arose (early 20th century England).
Emotivism was responding to something called intuitionism, proposed by G. E. Moore, which had three main claims:
Secondly, he makes the bald claim that the first principle is obviously false, and the second and third are at best extremely suspect.
Apparently, a lot of people at the time (well known and historically significant ones two I guess) thought it was the best thing ever, so instead of completely dismissing everything out of hand, MacIntyre sets out to delve a bit deeper into why Intuitionism appealed to so many people.
MacIntyre claims that the real reason all of these people loved what Moore had to say so much was because they already wanted to believe his third principle, and they were excited to finally have someone articulate a framework that would allow them to justify that, and cast off any past restrictions on their actions in that regard.
In explaining some quick examples of the "thought" processes that this theory created, MacIntyre quickly comes to the conclusion that the Intuitionists were basically doing exactly what the Emotivists claimed everyone was doing: making claims of preference and disguising them as moral value statements.
However, the fact that Emotivism's claims are so clearly true of the specific environment that existed at the time and place of its creation actually takes away from the idea that the same might be true of moral thought and argument everywhere. This is in large part due to the fact that Intuitionism (as MacIntyre portrays it) is so obviously ridiculous, which is not assumed to be true of every school of thought ever.
MacIntyre quickly points out that there have been multiple cases of Emotivism gaining popularity, in different times and places, but provides some examples of how each time, they were the result of a similar occurrence to the one he explains in greater detail above.
Emotivism, because it does not try and build any sort of historical or sociological background for its claims, is therefore stating that because in the current society (Cambridge after 1903 or, as MacIntyre is proposing, the West now) there are not actual rational justifications for moral arguments, there have never been such justifications, ever, and at any place.
However, if this theory is advanced to its conclusion, this means that all of the standard forms of moral discourse should be abandoned, because they no longer make any sense (statements such as "This is good" and "this is bad" now have no meaning, and apparently never have).
Because of the failures of definition described above, Emotivism was rejected by analytical philosophers who followed it.
This does not mean it is dead and gone however, and it continually pokes up in modern discourse, if in watered down or disguised forms.
Apparently the most influential description of moral reasoning which was created to respond to Emotivism lies in the creation of a logical chain to be used by an agent. Basically, somebody knows a choice is correct because of a higher and more general principle that can be applied, and that principle has another principle lying behind it, and so on and so on.
The problem here is the fact that any such chain of reason must be finite, and eventually you have to reach a point where a principle cannot be justified, a point of origin for the chain.
Therefore, there can be no criteria which guide the selection of this origin point or "first principle". Which in turn brings us back very close indeed to Emotivism, just hidden behind some extra steps.
Apparently the other significant attempt to "defeat" Emotivism lay in proving the rationality itself provides morality with a basis.
MacIntyre rejects all of the trains of thought which lay out this claim however, but defers proving them wrong until Chapter 6.
A quick dig he takes against such claims however is the fact that there have been a good number of them, and all of them are quite different, which seems to already lend credence to his claim that they do not hold up to scrutiny. If they were actually purely grounded in reason, one would think they would reach the same conclusions...
MacIntyre then goes on to claim that issues similar to those which plague analytical moral philosophy (its inability to shake off emotivism even as it tries to prove it wrong) can be seen buried in the work of thinkers like Nietzsche and Sartre, even though both are extremely different from each other, and from analytical philosophy.
After firmly establishing how prevalent Emotivism is in more recent schools of thought (even those which claim to oppose it) MacIntyre gets to the point of the chapter, namely, that his own thesis will mostly be fighting against these claims of Emotivism established above.
He believes that moral argument was not always just about competing statements of opinion, but used to be something more.
Following this, he lays out two goals for himself going forward:
He goes on to provide 3 examples of common arguments illustrating this point, with their most common antagonistic views.
Argument 1: Just War
- There is no longer any such thing as a just war, due to the fact that a modern conflict makes the determinations required (the good which will be achieved outweighs the evil committed, and their will be a harsh divide between combatants and noncombatants) impossible to safely make. Therefore, everyone should become a pacifist.
- The best way to achieve peace is to be possess such a powerful military infrastructure that nobody dares attack you, and at times it may be required to prosecute strategic wars to the best of the capability allowed by that infrastructure to prevent more dangerous wars from occurring. Because of this, nothing is truly disallowed, up to and including nuclear proliferation, otherwise war will still occur, with the only difference being that you lose.
- "World Wars" or wars between equivalent powers have reached the point where they can only be destructive. However, wars fought on a more limited scale, in order to free the oppressed, which are manageable and not all-encompassing should still be pursued in specific circumstances, for the good of those oppressed peoples.
- Everybody has the right to control their own body. Therefore, people should have the right to determine what is done or is not done to a specific part of their body (a developing embryo), meaning that abortion is ok.
- I honestly can't exactly follow this argument, as half of it seems to say yes, half to say no, there is no transition between the two, and unlike every other position here the final conclusion is very wishy-washy. Help?
- Because an embryo is alive in its own right, the termination of a pregnancy actually results in the death of an individual, which is legally classified as murder. Therefore abortion is both morally wrong and should be illegal.
- It is required by the virtue of justice that a society/government should provide equal opportunity for growth and development for all of its citizens. Included in this is equal access to healthcare and education. If these things are to be provided equally to all, there should not be an option for better (or worse) options to be obtained. Therefore all private providers of either of these two services should be completely outlawed and abolished, leaving only state-run institutions.
- Each person has the right to engage in contracts or undertake obligations of their own free will, and not have such things forced upon them. For example, doctors should be able to choose to practice medicine according to their conscience, and patients should be able to choose between doctors, and the same for students and teachers. Therefore, the option for private practice in both fields should not only exist, but all governing or restraining rules and institutions which bear on either should be abolished, to better protect the freedom of those who desire to take part.
He then goes on to claim that there are three main characteristics that each set of arguments has in common with the others.
Firstly, he states that each of the positions articulated is logically complete in and of itself. There are no obvious contradictions, and there is no obvious way to dethrone one position and replace it with another using reason alone. The main difference in them lies not in this enumeration, but rather in the initial principles or "norms" that they begin from.
Therefore, any sustained argument over one of these three positions will eventually devolve into a shouting match about which set of "goods" should take precedence over the other (for example, justice and innocence vs success and survival, in the case of the just war argument).
He also claims that the observable "shrillness" of so many of these arguments comes not only from the fact that there is no reasonable solution to be found, but also from the fact that we each, at our core, do not have a rational reason internal to ourselves for choosing a given position over another.
Therefore, each person advancing one position over another knows, deep down, that they also lack any good reason for their position, which results in a desire to overcompensate by simply being louder, or more "shrill".
A second characteristic of all of the above positions is the fact that they all take great pains to APPEAR impersonal, rational, and reasonable. This, when paired with the first observation, creates a frustrating paradox out of most of these arguments (according to MacIntyre).
Even if there is no possible way for a rational triumph of one position over another to be reached, it begs the question of why all sides of every argument think that it is so important that they at least pretend to be seeking one, even if none of them are apparently able to.
MacIntyre goes on to claim that his third point, the fact that each of the positions articulated has its origin point in an entirely different school of thought from the others, is in fact related to the confusion caused by the contradiction of the first two characteristics.
He doesn't really get into the 'how' or the 'why' of relationship just yet, but instead promises it is still coming (while continuing to make self-deprecating comments about the validity of his thought experiment).
The next point he goes on to make from here is that part of the origin of this confusion is what he calls the "unhistorical treatment of moral philosophy". Basically he is claiming that current philosophers are failing to view the works of the great thinkers of the past in their proper context, and so cannot truly appreciate them.
Then he takes a bit of a divergence from his line of thought to face the accusation that he is levying an unfounded criticism on current moral discourse. Namely, the claim that it should be held to some higher standard, and the implication that there was a point in time where competing moral claims could actually be resolved rationally, and that they have not always and forever, by their nature, been relegated to matters of volume and emotion.
This is apparently the claim of Emotivism, a school of thought advanced in England from 1903 to 1937, and it states that all statements of moral evaluation are really just statements of personal preference.
Emotivism, according to MacIntyre, makes this blanket claim about all value judgements that can be made, ever.
If it is true then, the "problem" the chapter opens with really isn't a problem after all, but simply the nature of the beast. MacIntyre disagrees with their claims however, and sets about dismantling them.
His first quibble with the theory is that if all more claims are really just statements of feeling or emotion, then we should be able to classify what sort of feelings they convey. However, the best that can be managed is a circular claim that goes roughly as follows:
- Moral judgements express feelings-What feelings?
- Feelings of approval-what approval?
- Moral approval-What is moral?
The second charge against Emotivism is that its entire foundation is to equate two types of statement which are, by the function of their use in our language, meant to contrast each other. We tend to define the difference between opinion statements and moral judgements precisely by virtue of their not being each other.
His third claim against this principle is the fact that it does not even lay out its own claims very well. While the theory is supposed to be making a statement about types of sentences, according to MacIntyre it is actually making a claim about the USE of sentences, since the conveying of emotion through a sentence depends much more on how the sentence is used (context, delivery, etc.) than the actual word choice. (He has some good examples here, but far funnier ones are pretty easy to conjure up).
If however, this second, more accurate claim were actually true, that would mean that somehow the meaning behind moral value statements and their practical use in society had become drastically divorced without people realizing it.
When faced with this challenge, MacIntyre decides to back out of the rabbit hole a bit and instead look at the specific historical and cultural context that Emotivism arose from, to see if an explanation for its logical inconsistencies could be found there.
Since it has a specific origin point, MacIntyre asks the question of whether it was perhaps not an account of all moral discourse ever, but rather of the moral discourse prevalent in the time and place in which it arose (early 20th century England).
Emotivism was responding to something called intuitionism, proposed by G. E. Moore, which had three main claims:
- 'Good' is the word used to classify a single, indefinable property. Therefore, any claim that something was "good" could not be proved or disproved, if 'Good" itself could not be defined. Instead such claims were simple articulations of feeling or "intuition".
- Calling an action 'right' according to Moore is simply claiming that, of the possible alternatives available, it will produce the greatest amount of 'good'. Therefore no given action or choice can be right or wrong in a vacuum, everything depends on circumstances.
- The greatest 'goods' achievable are, according to Moore, the establishment of genuine friendships and the appreciation of beauty. Therefore courses of action will allow for the pursuit of these two things will always be the 'right' ones.
Secondly, he makes the bald claim that the first principle is obviously false, and the second and third are at best extremely suspect.
Apparently, a lot of people at the time (well known and historically significant ones two I guess) thought it was the best thing ever, so instead of completely dismissing everything out of hand, MacIntyre sets out to delve a bit deeper into why Intuitionism appealed to so many people.
MacIntyre claims that the real reason all of these people loved what Moore had to say so much was because they already wanted to believe his third principle, and they were excited to finally have someone articulate a framework that would allow them to justify that, and cast off any past restrictions on their actions in that regard.
In explaining some quick examples of the "thought" processes that this theory created, MacIntyre quickly comes to the conclusion that the Intuitionists were basically doing exactly what the Emotivists claimed everyone was doing: making claims of preference and disguising them as moral value statements.
However, the fact that Emotivism's claims are so clearly true of the specific environment that existed at the time and place of its creation actually takes away from the idea that the same might be true of moral thought and argument everywhere. This is in large part due to the fact that Intuitionism (as MacIntyre portrays it) is so obviously ridiculous, which is not assumed to be true of every school of thought ever.
MacIntyre quickly points out that there have been multiple cases of Emotivism gaining popularity, in different times and places, but provides some examples of how each time, they were the result of a similar occurrence to the one he explains in greater detail above.
Emotivism, because it does not try and build any sort of historical or sociological background for its claims, is therefore stating that because in the current society (Cambridge after 1903 or, as MacIntyre is proposing, the West now) there are not actual rational justifications for moral arguments, there have never been such justifications, ever, and at any place.
However, if this theory is advanced to its conclusion, this means that all of the standard forms of moral discourse should be abandoned, because they no longer make any sense (statements such as "This is good" and "this is bad" now have no meaning, and apparently never have).
Because of the failures of definition described above, Emotivism was rejected by analytical philosophers who followed it.
This does not mean it is dead and gone however, and it continually pokes up in modern discourse, if in watered down or disguised forms.
Apparently the most influential description of moral reasoning which was created to respond to Emotivism lies in the creation of a logical chain to be used by an agent. Basically, somebody knows a choice is correct because of a higher and more general principle that can be applied, and that principle has another principle lying behind it, and so on and so on.
The problem here is the fact that any such chain of reason must be finite, and eventually you have to reach a point where a principle cannot be justified, a point of origin for the chain.
Therefore, there can be no criteria which guide the selection of this origin point or "first principle". Which in turn brings us back very close indeed to Emotivism, just hidden behind some extra steps.
Apparently the other significant attempt to "defeat" Emotivism lay in proving the rationality itself provides morality with a basis.
MacIntyre rejects all of the trains of thought which lay out this claim however, but defers proving them wrong until Chapter 6.
A quick dig he takes against such claims however is the fact that there have been a good number of them, and all of them are quite different, which seems to already lend credence to his claim that they do not hold up to scrutiny. If they were actually purely grounded in reason, one would think they would reach the same conclusions...
MacIntyre then goes on to claim that issues similar to those which plague analytical moral philosophy (its inability to shake off emotivism even as it tries to prove it wrong) can be seen buried in the work of thinkers like Nietzsche and Sartre, even though both are extremely different from each other, and from analytical philosophy.
After firmly establishing how prevalent Emotivism is in more recent schools of thought (even those which claim to oppose it) MacIntyre gets to the point of the chapter, namely, that his own thesis will mostly be fighting against these claims of Emotivism established above.
He believes that moral argument was not always just about competing statements of opinion, but used to be something more.
Following this, he lays out two goals for himself going forward:
- Find this past philosophy from before Emotivism took over the culture, identify it, and evaluate its merits.
- Prove that we currently live in a culture which embraces Emotivism at many levels, and mostly unknowingly.
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