Phil 327

Mills “But What Are you Really?”

(1) Mills wants to employ philosophical categories normally used to discuss the reality of morality in order to discuss race. The following is a brief explanation of the categories in terms of morality

Mills distinguishes between ‘Objectivism’ and ‘Anti-objectivism’. The latter includes relativism, subjectivism, and error theory. One feature of ‘anti-objectivism’ is that morality or race (or whatever it is that we are applying these categories to) are viewed as ultimately dependent upon human beliefs. Human belief is enough to make it so. Thus: If an individual or a society has for a moral code that genocide is acceptable, then it is acceptable (for that individual or that society). There is nothing ‘beyond’ this.

Anti-Objectivism

‘Moral Relativism’. According to this view, morality is like the law. Just as laws are relative to state, so morality is relative to culture. It makes no sense to say: Is prostitution illegal? One needs to specify where. It is legal in some parts of Nevada, and illegal in California, etc. Now you might say that each culture has a moral code (a set of cultural values). [By the way, this assumption is exceptionally naïve. But never mind]. This position says that to ask ‘Is genocide morally wrong?’ is like asking whether prostitution is illegal. It depends where. Thus, we might say that in Canada, genocide is wrong, whereas in Nazi Germany, it was morally acceptable.  

I have an objection to relativism. It is not a refutation of it. However, unless there is a good reason to believe relativism, I do not think we should believe it.

Moral relativism goes against our ordinary, everyday approach to morality. It strikes us as morally repugnant to say that whether genocide or slavery is wrong is just a matter of cultural code. Don’t we want to say that some cultural moral codes are just wrong? Also, we tend to believe in moral progress. But how can we believe in this progress, unless we can believe that certain moral codes are wrong – shown to be wrong – so that people can adopt new and better views. Finally, when we are faced with a moral conflict, we do not simply determine the moral code (by asking friends, etc.). Rather we reason about what the right thing might be. My point is this: If moral relativism is correct, then much of our everyday approach to morality is wrong. We shouldn’t be willing to overturn our views about morality until there is a good argument to do so.

Is there a good argument? Well here are two BAD ONES.

Sometimes people try to argue for moral relativism by noting that different cultures have different moral codes. This is true. And everybody ought to accept that fact. However, moral relativism does not follow from this. Just because there are different moral codes in different cultures doesn't mean that some of those codes aren't PLAIN WRONG (e.g. codes authorizing genocide, imperialism, slavery, etc.). A moral relativist says MORE than that there are different codes in different cultures. The moral relativist also says that there is NOTHING MORE TO MORALITY THAN THE VARIOUS CULTURAL CODES. The relativist says that the question: "Is slavery wrong?" is a misplaced question (just like "Is prostitution illegal"). One needs to specific WHERE.

Sometimes people try to argue for moral relativism by appealing to the view that it is wrong to impose one's views on other people. Ironically, this claim actually GOES AGAINST moral relativism. Consider an imperial power that is trying to impose their values on others. Now, from their own perspective they will believe that what they are doing is morally acceptable. But if YOU think that it is STILL WRONG for this imperial power to impose their will, then you have actually REJECTED MORAL RELATIVISM! A moral relativist would say that if this imperialism is acceptable to the imperialist state, then it is okay for them, and probably not okay for the cultures that they are colonizing. A moral relativist would say that the question "Is it wrong to impose your value-systems on other cultures" is a misplaced question (just like "Is prostitution illegal?).So if you think that a principle forbidding cultural imposition and intolerance argues in favor of relativism, then you are mistaken. 

‘Subjectivism’. This is just like relativism. However, rather than relativizing morality to a culture, it is relative to an individual. So: There is no morality independent of individual moral codes.

Objectivism

The most obvious form of objectivism is realism. According to realism, moral truths (or races) exist independently of individual and culture. One of the best ways to defend this view (in terms of morality) is to appeal to God (or to some form of spirituality). In this view, morality is beyond human beings and in the ‘hands’ of the Divine.

Constructivism is hard to distinguish from relativism. Mills says that the former is a form of ‘objectivism’, while the latter is not. So what’s the difference?

In order to see the difference, consider a procedure that most of us engage in when reasoning about tough moral decisions. John Rawls (a famous political philosopher) calls this ‘reflective equilibrium.’ ‘Reflective equilibrium’ is the balancing between general moral principles (intended to explain the rightness or wrongness of particular cases) with our moral intuitions about imagined situations.

For example: We share the intuition that it is wrong to randomly spray mace at people. In order to explain this, we want to appeal to a general principle which identifies the ‘wrong-making’ feature of this situation (and which we can use in other situations as well). So we propose this principle: It is wrong to do things which harm people. This explains what is wrong with spraying mace at people randomly (it inflicts harm, and it is wrong to inflict harm).

But now consider: Is it wrong to use it in self-defense? Is it always wrong to harm? If our moral intuitions tell us it is sometimes ok, then we need to go back and find a new principle. For example: It is wrong to violate a person’s right not to be harmed. (We can say that a person who attacks somebody else for no reason waives their right not to be harmed).

What’s the point? In this imagined case, we reasoned about morality in ways that went well beyond any naïve appeal to prevailing cultural moral code (as in the case of relativism). Instead, we actually reasoned. However we started with moral intuitions. These moral intuitions may be part of the cultural values with which we were inculcated from very early on. If so, these starting-values may vary from culture to culture. So while morality is not merely whatever a culture says that it is, it is nonetheless dependent upon it in some more complicated way.

Another way of trying to understand the difference: Checkers. While we can all agree that the game "checkers" is social constructed (i.e. it is a human invention, an organized social practice), it is not something that can be arbitrarily altered by human decision. There are good moves in checkers and bad moves. And even if a group of people were under the impression that some move in the game was good, they could actually be WRONG. This means that whether a move is good or bad is actually independent of the beliefs of human beings about whether the move is good or bad. So this is an objectivist stance.

Now consider the moral truth: Genocide is morally wrong. Could society just vote to change this? Suppose we all decided to say that genocide was morally praise worthy. At this point I begin to lose my sense of what ‘morality’ even means. It’s like calling a dog a cat. What does it mean? But even if there are constraints on what can count as moral and what cannot, this does not mean that morality isn’t socially constructed.

Here are other distinctions between relativism and constructivism

(1) Constructivism affirms there is more to morality than just the the prevailing cultural code

(2) Constructivism allows for facts about morality that are not merely determined by the beliefs of the people in the culture.

(3) Constructivism affirms a process of moral reasoning whereby moral truths are ascertained.

Mills on Race

Realism: A realist about race believes that there are discrete races (almost different species). This is a biological fact, independent of cultural belief and value. Mills thinks that generally racial realism will be racists (since the main point of this belief is to support racist ideals). Point: Science has not found any deep biological bases for speaking of discrete races. The view has been seriously discredited.

NOTE: Race seems less real than even sex. For there are NO deep genetic differences. By contrast, it does seem that XX and XY tend to track sex/gender differences. Moreover, racial differences could be obliterated through on-going interracial marriage.

Constructivism: Mills is a constructivist about race. He thinks that while it is socially constructed, it is deeper than mere cultural beliefs that races exists (i.e. racial relativism). In a way, races actually do exist in the way that baseball actually exists. Both are socially constructed.