Meta-meta-ethics

(NOTE: for those who don't wish to read my summary of moral intuitionism, skip till after the second set of asterisks.)

I wish to propose a meta-meta-ethical view that will give reason for existence of meta-ethical theories.

What does that mean? Well, ethics asks evaluative questions. Such as: "What actions or circumstances are good or bad?" and "What actions or circumstances are right or wrong?"

Meta-ethics asks questions about the nature of evaluative truths. What is good and bad? What is their nature? What do we mean when we say those words (or should mean if we are to make any sense)? How do we know what actions are good or bad? How can we find out?

A meta-meta-ethical analysis asks what the role of making meta-ethical theories is. And how we know that those are true.

One simple answer is: by using reason. We can just see if a meta-ethical theory makes any sense internally. (Just like we would with, say, a geometric theorem.)

For instance, Kant says that a categorical imperative is a kind of imperative that would be binding on you if you knew it to be binding on everyone. Which you can verify by imagining a world in which such an imperative is not binding on anyone. Is this view coherent? Does it make sense? One can ask questions like: Well, yes, it makes sense that were absolute binding rules to exist, they would take form of categorical imperatives. But who says they exist? Also: how are we to judge whether a world in which everyone is free to lie or murder is a good world? Should we use our emotions? Why is that a good method for evaluating whether a world is good or bad?

In other words, we can test the internal coherence of a specific meta-ethical theory.

But people oftentimes don't do just that. They do that and they also test the conclusions of the theory. For instance: is torturing puppies for fun moral? Some might argue that it passes every one of Kant's moral maxims. Is lying to a Nazi asking you where the Jews are hiding immoral? Some argue that according to Kant's maxims it is immoral, and one shouldn't lie even in such a situation.

When people hear such conclusions, they infer that there is something wrong with Kant's meta-ethical theory. Or at least that it is incomplete. Because it leads to absurd conclusions.

But why should that be a test of a meta-ethical theory?

* * *

It seems that people already know what the correct moral answers are — at least in some cases. Even without having a coherent meta-ethical theory on their hands. How do they know? And if they do, what's the use of having meta-ethical theories?

Well, this is where the theory of moral intuitionism comes in. I've discussed it before, and I was introduced to it through writings of a moral philosopher Michael Huemer (whose book, Moral Intuitionism, I am currently reading and recommend to everyone interested in the subject), but, briefly, the idea is that there are moral truths about the world and our actions which we perceive intuitively.

What are these truths metaphysically? I haven't read that far in Huemer's book yet, but from his essays, it seems that he believes that the answer doesn't make sense. It assumes that moral truths must be defined in terms of some other set of truths, like natural truths. But, first, this would defy Humean is–ought gap, and, second, there is no reason why we cannot think of moral truths to be a separate set of truths, besides the natural ones.*

(I expressed my frustration and skepticism with this analysis before and offered an alternative explanation as to the metaphysics of moral truths. But I will leave that issue alone for now. And I am not completely sure I was right.)

How do we know about moral truths? Well, we perceive them. Intuitively. We have a perceptual modality called moral intuition, and through it we perceive certain actions as "choice-worthy" or not. And the idea called phenomenal conservatism says that unless we have a good reason to do otherwise, we should take our perceptions seriously. Because: well, they are there. We know about them. That is some sort of knowledge. Unless you have another sort of knowledge (usually from other perceptions) that denies this knowledge, it seems unreasonable not take the latter seriously.

* * *

So, how can moral intuitionism be a meta-meta-ethical theory? Doesn't it sound like a meta-ethical theory in itself?

Well, to answer this question, we have to humble ourselves a little regarding our physical and mathematical theories. We perceive physical and mathematical "truths" to be exactly such: true (we hope). Of course, with physics, we often re-evaluate our models later. And then again. With math we don't re-evaluate them, but we just make new ones if we need to. (So, in physics, "F=ma" is corrected by Einstein. In Math, Eucledean geometry exists in parallel with Riemannian geometry.)

But perhaps another equally correct way of thinking about both physical and mathematical models is not in terms of their absolute truth (or a degree of approximation thereof), but in terms of their usefulness. It is useful to imagine the world being countable in discrete numbers. It is useful to imagine shapes of all objects as being drawn on a sheet of paper. It is useful to think of the world as full of moving particles.

Until it's not useful anymore. And then, on that level, we apply a different model. What do I mean by "useful"? Useful in what sense? Only in the sense of explanatory power. I can explain how heat flows from one room to another if I model it in terms of many particles' kinetic energy. Such a model is more useful than one having some mysterious substance phlogiston flowing from one place to another, because the first model fits and predicts more observable phenomena.

The same goes for physical concepts like field, mass, energy, force, spin, voltage, and so on. They are just lego pieces that we invented; a perceptual glue to hold our observations together and make them fit into one shape. It's not really clear to me, for example, whether field really exists out there, as a property of space, or whether it's just something we made up to explain charged particles' behavior when they are a certain distance from other charged particles.

Why do we need the models? Because we can't observe all aspects of nature directly. So, we must deduce existence of something from those observations that we can make directly. And those deductions must be judged in terms of their usefulness in terms of their predictive and explanatory power.


What does this have to do with ethics? Well: I know it's wrong to kill humans out of pure convenience (or to prevent inconvenience). I know it's wrong to kill newborn babies. I know it's not wrong to kill one's cancer tumor (lo aleinu) or remove a mole. All these things I know from intuition.

I don't know whether it's wrong to kill fetuses. That's a gray area for my intuition.

For that reason, I need to construct a meta-ethical theory that will somehow incorporate my intuitive knowledge about ethics of "everyday" killing and will give me an answer about the morality of abortion. The data for this theory (that will either verify or break it) will be the moral facts I already know intuitively.

For instance, if we say that it's wrong to kill someone because you're extinguishing consciousness, then it seems OK to kill a fetus before his nervous system is developed enough to be conscious. Well... is it moral to put someone under anesthesia? Is it moral to kill someone, once he is under anesthesia? The answers to these questions seem intuitively obvious, and these answers break the "extinguishing consciousness" theory.

Note that "extinguishing consciousness" theory is not itself internally complete. It doesn't explain why extinguishing consciousness would be wrong. It only attempts to systematize our existing beliefs in some cohesive whole and make predictions about moral truths not immediately accessible to our intuition. Unfortunately, as I said, it is not a good meta-ethical theory, because it is broken by the data: our intuitive knowledge.

This way, moral intuitionism serves not only as a meta-ethical theory (it explains about the nature of moral truths and how we are to know them), but also as a meta-meta-ethical theory: it explains how meta-ethical theories can be useful even if we are not to think of them as "real truths" as opposed to mere models.

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* Also, as an aside, if someone asks you: "What is water?", the most straightforward answer is: "What I perceive to be water: a clear, odorless, tasteless, drinkable liquid, with certain observable physical and chemical properties". Based on those characteristics, I know I am dealing with water.

If you answer: "Well, water is H2O", that invites the question: "What is hydrogen? What is oxygen? What are atoms?" You can explain in terms of electrons and protons, and so on... but eventually you will have to stop. You will have to say that there is a set of phenomena in the universe that behave a certain way, but why they behave that way we don't know for sure yet.

So, does this mean that you fundamentally don't know what water is? That seems strange. Also, imagine that — as unlikely as it sounds — it was proven that actually water is not H2O and H2O is not water. What would that mean? Would we continue calling the H2O water? Seemingly not. We would continue calling water the phenomenon of clear, odorless, tasteless, drinkable liquid that freezes at 0 degrees Celcius.

Basically, this analysis shows us that our perceptions are not chopped liver. Now apply the same analysis to "what is good" and "what is evil", and the answer "that which I perceive as something that ought not be done in principle" doesn't seem so silly anymore.

The case for open borders by Michael Huemer

Michael Huemer, a libertarian and intuitionist-moralist philosopher (who's been receiving some attention both on this blog and on Cato Unbound website recently) talks about ethics of open borders and unrestricted immigration:



Interestingly, Dr. Huemer discusses the concept of prima facie vs. absolute right to travel.

Should Orthodox Jews demand gay marriage to be illegal?

The author of the Emes ve-Emunah blog laments about Western society abandoning Bible-based ethics and Bible-believing people supporting laws going against the Bible-derived ethics. He uses gay marriage as an example.

You can read the post to see his argument and to judge whether you agree or not.

Here is my comment to the post (it uses my approach to the issue which I have written about multiple times, so don't expect any novel thoughts here):



Your assumption is that laws should be based on societal ethics. But this is erroneous. The purpose of law is to create a society, not to create a particular ethical version of a society. There has to be a basic set of prohibitions that maintain the society: prohibition from murder, stealing, rape, and fraud. Without those, there is no society.

After that, people are free to create private communities in which they can implement their personal ethical standards. The communities don't have to be geographically segregated, they can coexist, just like in modern American cities, Catholics, Protestants, Muslim, Hindus, atheists, and, lehavdil, Jews, coexist and co-operate (trade with each other and even work together).

There is absolutely no need for a society to determine what "marriage is" at all. This is not the society's concern. Jews can define marriage one way; atheists can define it another.

Anyway, according to Judaism, there is no concept of marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew. Therefore what? Would you want to make that into a law? Before our ancestors came to US, they have lived in the lands where people thought it ok to impose their views of what is ethical on Jews. And that continues to be so: in California, people attempted to ban circumcision. In Germany (in the same country where being a Nazi is illegal), it was actually banned. (So, you may think that banning views that you dislike is a good idea, but be prepared for the majority to ban your lifestyle if it doesn't like it.) In Scandinavian countries, shechita is banned on animal cruelty grounds. In Sweden, not sending your kid to a public school is forbidden. And so on. Supporting ethical paternalism doesn't seem to be in our favor...

If your ethical, moral, and religious principles prohibit you from tolerating people in a society who behave according to ethical standards foreign to yours (e.g., those who live gay lifestyle, or those who worship what you consider avoida zara), to the point that you'd prohibit those lifestyles through a use of force (which is what law is), then start by not doing any kind of business with them or those that do business with them. Even if you live in Israel, I think you will find this position impossible. We have to trade with nochrim (both in our country and abroad) to survive. We have to rely on their technology and services that they provide. Sometimes we even have to work for them. We have, therefore, to co-exist with them.

If we have to co-exist with them, we cannot find it unethical for the laws of our society not to prohibit their lifestyles — unless, of course, aspects of those lifestyles endanger the concept of a society. (So, our laws can tolerate them worshiping gods but not sacrificing children to them. Because once you make murder legal, there is no society or law to speak of. It all becomes "might makes right".)

The whole issue of gay marriage is completely moot. There should be no government-approved marriage. I don't want some stinking bureaucrat to "bless" my marriage. Nor do I want him to bless anyone's marriage on my behalf. In fact, I don't want anyone to do anything on my behalf (including Obama dronning people in some far-away lands), unless I explicitly contracted him to do something.

Deontological vs. consequentialist ethics

Deontological = rule-based. Consequentialist = consequence-oriented. Or, deontological = focused on the means, whatever the end; consequentialist = focused on the end, whatever the means.

An absurd example of deontological ethics is making it a rule never to lie and not lying to a Nazi asking you whether you're hiding any Jews. The result (people killed) is intuitively recognized as horrific, but you have adhered to the rule you committed yourself to. The point of this ad absurdum argument is that not caring about the consequences, as long as you adhere to the rules, is sometimes ridiculous. Or, in Latin, fiat justitia ruat caelum (“let the justice be done though heavens may fall").

One can also think, of course, of consequentialist ad absurdums. For instance, one achieves some worthy goal through lying or bullying others: you invest your client's money into something against his wishes, and that earns profit for him. Yes, you have achieved a positive result, but you have done so through an immoral act. Or, for instance, if you see some guy who owns some land that he doesn't use or uses badly. You confiscate the land from him, pay him very well for it, and put the land to a much better use, enriching the community. The guy was paid more than he would ever earn, and everyone benefited so much, but you have violated his property rights.

So, it would seem that it's important to take into account both consequentialist and deontological approaches.

One way to reconcile them is to treat deontological approach as producing long-term consequences with certain high but not 100% probability. Deontological rules can be framed in terms of slippery slopes. On the other hand, consequentialist approach worries about short-term consequences that have very high, near-100% probabilities (such as someone drowning). Usually it's more responsible to worry about long-term over short-term consequences, unless short-term consequences are totally terrible (and possibly unforeseen or an exception/emergency). So, this is the way to frame the balance between them in consequentialist terms (long-term vs. short-term consequences). Deontological framing would be to make a rule: e.g., "generally speaking, we don't lie, unless lying can save someone's life." Or: "generally speaking, we don't break into people's houses, unless we need to save someone's life from a fire." Etc.

Things get turned on their heads when allowance to break the long-term rules for short-term emergencies gets confused for not caring about the long-term rules. It's like a cousin who asked to sleep on the couch for the night and stayed for a month. I.e., the time frame of both the rule and the consequences gets confused. For instance, "we can confiscate someone's house to pay for someone else's cancer treatment". (Note, also, how the usual criticism of libertarian arguments involves life-boat situations.)

Divine Command and Euthyphro dilemma

Background

What makes something moral? What is the nature of morality?

There are many answers given by philosophers. They range from answers by moral realists (different variations of "morality is out there") to moral subjectivists (different versions of "morality is each person's personal taste"). There are a few other brands and some groups in between (e.g., cultural relativists who assert that the morals are societies' norms, and in that sense they are objective and "out there", but, they can differ from society to society and in that sense they are subjective), but those are the major divisions of views.

Divine Command and Euthyphro dilemma

Then there is a view that morality is equivalent to Divine Command (DC). That morality = Will of G-d. It can be classified as either objective or subjective (I prefer the former logically). There are a number of "external" objections to the DC, such as "how do we know that G-d exists" which I will not address here (see this, for instance).

I have read about an "internal" objection called Euthyphro dilemma, named after a character in Plato's play, which can be summed up as:

Is what is morally good commanded by G-d because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by G-d?

Possible answers

Well, let's look at the options:

1. That which is morally good is commanded by G-d because it is morally good.

This is a problematic answer for a number of reasons:

a) It doesn't really give an answer about the nature of morality. G-d wants that which is morally good because it is good, but why is it good and what makes it moral? We are back to square one. If this were the essence of DC, then DC could not be a valid moral theory; it would be just a confirmation that G-d cares about morality.

b) This answer contradicts the very definition of morality. DC cannot logically tell us we should do something that we know is moral because it is commanded by G-d. Morality by definition is "that which ought to be done". So "because it is commanded by G-d" is superfluous as the impetus for doing morality. If we already know what is moral, we don't need to be told that we need to do it because X . We already know we need to do it.

(I.e., this argument is the flip-side of the previous one.)

c) This definition implies that there is something binding on G-d, which is problematic for a number of theological reasons (which I won't discuss in detail here) such as: primacy of G-d, omnipresence of G-d (not just physical, but logical), and omnipotence of G-d (ditto). I.e., G-d must precede all concepts, cannot be dependent on any concepts, and must be "found" in all concepts (the last point is controversial according to some schools of thought, but suffice it to say that I wouldn't eat their shechita).

So, what's the other option?

2. It is morally good because it is commanded by G-d

Let us define very clearly what might be meant by this statement. One possibility is that to find out what is good, one needs to ask G-d (or see what G-d told others, if it's applicable to one too).

I don't think this definition is logically problematic, but it is empirically problematic. I.e., if we look at Jewish tradition, we find that there are indications that humans (and Jews in particular) should know already what is moral, even without having been told by G-d. For instance, there is a statement by one of the meforshim that someone who has to pay his wife a kesuba doesn't only need to depend on what it says in Torah. He must know by himself that he has to pay the kesuba because he made a promise.

There is a statement that even if mishpotim were not given, one would be able to learn them oneself.

There is a sense, from learning various Jewish texts, that rabbis already have a sense of justice and morality independently of Torah. In fact, oftentimes, Torah is tested against those concepts: one asks, how can Torah prescribe X, or how can G-d do Y, and then people answer, revealing that in fact X and Y do not contradict our concepts of justice and morality. Why don't we merely say: "Don't asks stupid questions. Whatever G-d decided must be just by definition." (Similarly to someone who might say: "He who made oil burn will also make vinegar burn". I.e., don't ask how G-d can violate laws of nature: He created them!) It is assumed not only that Torah and Hashem must behave according to the concepts of morality (which is another issue, to be discussed below), but also that those concepts are known to us already.

Finally, it seems that Torah does not have a very detailed discussion of morality like it does, say, of laws of tefillin. Certainly there are moral statements in Torah and certain prescriptions pertaining to morality (such as laws of visiting the sick, loshon ho'rah, business dealings, etc.), but the general discussion of morality seems to be lacking. (Maybe I am wrong.)

(There are concerns brought by philosophers that usually rely on intuitionist moral conservatism: i.e., taking our moral intuitions seriously. The concern is usually voiced as: "If G-d told you to torture someone, would you do it? Would that make it moral?"

I don't think this is a valid argument because it presupposes the truth of moral intuitionism. The argument assumes that we know what is moral from our intuitions, and then finds a possible contradiction between that morality and DC-produced morality. But that basically amounts to saying: "I think DC is wrong because I think we know what is moral intuitively." I would classify this as an external critique of DC, not an internal one, and I am not completely sure that the intuitionist approach could defeat DC on these grounds.

In fact, it could probably be defeated on its own grounds: if we have two intuitions, one telling us directly that X is wrong and another telling us that we know that G-d told us X is right, we should probably trust the second intuition and assume the first one erroneous. If the first intuition is strong, we can double-check the second one multiple times to make sure that that is indeed what G-d said and there is no room for mistake, but once we are assured of that, we should probably go ahead and rely on the intuition telling us that X is right.

This is no different in principle from observing by eyes that a lake is shallow, but some independent measurement telling us that the lake is indeed very deep. If that happens, we should probably double-check the measurement, but, as my boss says, the data are what they are.

Which is not to say that intuitionism is useless. Keep reading.)

The Verdict

What does this mean? Well, I think it means that while we might identify the commandments that G-d gave us directly as moral imperatives, we must have an independent way of identifying the "regular" (mishpotim-like) moral truths.

So, actually I think one might say that intuition is actually a good source of morality. I have been exploring this idea recently and have found myself growing more fond of it. (I have discussed it here and here.)

But does this mean that DC has failed? I think that there can be an intermediate solution: We can identify morality as G-d's will, but say that it is not discoverable (only) directly as G-d's will. To quote myself:

We might say that our intuitive feeling of goodness is one of the good's principia cognoscendi (its giluim): the qualities by which it can be recognized (the other being the fact that G-d told us that he wants it to be done). On the other hand, the fact that good is G-d's purpose for the reality is good's principium essendi (its atzmus): the description of what it is. 

One can still identify good or bad through his intuition, not only through Halacha; I am just explaining what it is that he is identifying. (Likewise a physicist might explain that when I feel cold, I am sensing indirectly the average kinetic energy of molecules around me.)

This also solves the problem of whether G-d can order us to do something which we will intuitively feel as wrong. One might say that no. My wife recently gave me the following argument of why Halacha cannot contradict morality:


Both Halacha and morality are prescriptive systems (they tell us what we ought to do). Both come from G-d (because everything comes from G-d). Presumably, G-d cannot at the same time want us to do X (according to Halacha) and not want us to do X (according to morality). Therefore, Halacha can never violate morality.

(Importantly, I don't think one could argue that everything comes from G-d, but not everything is allowed by Halacha or morality. Our animalistic urges, although they come from G-d, are not binding on us. But morality is, by definition. So is Halacha.)

So, what happens if G-d tells one to sacrifice our child? Well, that's like asking: if Earth's magnetic North and South shift places, where will the needle of a compass point? Well, obviously to the new location of the North, the former South pole. Now replace the compass with intuition and North with good, and you get the analogue.

This is assuming that one's intuition picks up good automatically (sort of like compass points to North automatically). It could be that G-d set up our intuitions to work a certain way (or even that they developed biologically in a certain way — although that would amount to the same) which is more rigid. After all, our sensory perception is rather rigid: this is why we get optical illusions. But we have a way of dealing with illusions, as mentioned above: just compare them to observations from other, more reliable, sources.

So, it is possible that we might feel intuitively wrong to do X but at the same time know objectively that G-d commanded X. Some sources say that this is how Abraham felt at the time he was commanded to kill Yitzchok. He felt intuitively that this was wrong, but he also knew intuitively that G-d told him to do so. So, he figured that the second intuition makes more sense to follow.

(In our times, the situation regarding child sacrifice is actually reversed. If you have a strong intuitive feeling that G-d is telling you to kill your children, check yourself in to a mental health facility. This is because we know that G-d doesn't want us to kill children and will never command us to do so. Therefore, whatever you feel like "G-d's will" is probably just an illusion or psychosis. Assuming one has not lost all his logical capacity, he can figure this out on his own by reminding himself that he is not a prophet.

On the other hand, this problem may be philosophically unsolvable. If I accidentally take a strong hallucinogenic drug and think my wife is a bear attacking me, I will have to defend myself. How am I to know better? (Remember that illusions don't just come as perceptions; they come with intuitive feeling of reality to them.) It seems there is nothing to be done in this case except to lock me up (hopefully temporarily, until the drug wears off). But it also seems I cannot be blamed for my actions.)


In any event, I think the above answers the Euthyphro dilemma to some extent.

Are moral truths objective?

In the previous post, I have assumed myself and relied on a proof by the philosopher Dr. Michael Huemer that moral truths are objective, rather than subjective. For instance, I believe that Hitler was objectively evil and that murder is objectively wrong, not that they are so only in the eye of a particular beholder. As I wrote:

Hitler was evil in and of himself, independent of anybody perceiving him as such and not in definition of the targets of his evil acts. I.e., that Hitler killed a lot of Jews was certainly bad for them, but we also think that the fact that he caused all that harm was an evil event in itself, not just from his victims' point of view (and not just because we fear that he or someone else might do the same to us, chv"sh).

Otherwise, it would be nonsensical to argue that murder is wrong: after all, if it's only wrong subjectively, from the point of view of the victim, then the victim is no longer there! So, once the victim is dead, the murder is no longer wrong, as there is nobody anymore to whom it could be wrong. But a murder is by definition murder only after the victim has been killed.

The best one could say then is that it's wrong because it caused suffering to the victim's family, but that is not what we mean when we say that the act of murder is wrong independently of whatever side effects it caused. I.e., yes, murder is wrong because it causes suffering to the living, but first and foremost it is wrong because it eliminates life — even of a completely useless person who has no relatives or friends. Likewise, we must distinguish between wrongness of murder and that of threat of murder.

There are, of course, those who disagree that Hitler was objectively evil. In my opinion, they are objectively wrong, just like those who think that moon is made of cheese, but our disagreement is not subjective. My disagreement with my wife over whether fish tastes good is, on the other hand, subjective. Neither of us thinks that it is an independent property of fish to taste good or not; we think that tasting good/bad is a unique reaction that fish produces in our brains/minds.

Dr. Huemer attempts to prove objectivity of moral truths in his essay Moral Objectivism. I urge you to read it carefully to judge for yourself whether he is successful. But I also wanted to quote a summary of his argument from another paper on moral objectivism:

[Claim:] Moral values are objective. That is, they really exist, and are independent of observers.

I have discussed this issue at length elsewhere and do not wish to repeat myself (at least not very much), so I will just review briefly two general reasons for this opinion. First, and most importantly, I think it is essential to our common sense conception of morality. When we contemplate or discuss moral issues, we normally experience ourselves as exploring a subject, debating matters of substance, and trying to make the correct judgements about them. Nor do we think that our obligations (etc.) depend on our or anyone's beliefs about them. We do not, for example, think that one way to solve all the world's problems would be for everybody to get together and agree not to consider anything bad anymore. We don't think, for instance, that one way to eliminate all oppression would be for a sufficient number of people to say, "There's no oppression." 

Therefore, we think that the evil (and of course the same would be true of good) exists independently of what observers say or think. And I think that one always ought to assume that things are the way they appear, until they can be proven otherwise. [Emphasis added — AC.]

Second, moral objectivism (like objectivism in general) seems to be entailed by the law of excluded middle and the correspondence theory of truth, along with a couple of what seem equally obvious observations about morality:

(1) There are moral propositions. 

(2) So they are each either true or false. (by law of excluded middle) 

(3) And it's not that they're all false. Surely it is true, rather than false, that Josef Stalin's activities were bad. (Although some communists would disagree, we needn't take their view seriously, and moreover, even they would admit some moral judgement, such as, "Stalin was good.")

(4) So some moral judgements correspond to reality. (from 2,3, and the correspondence theory of truth)

(5) So moral values are part of reality. (which is objectivism)

I don't know if a typical subjectivist would try denying (3), but if so, then to resolve the dispute, what we have to do is weigh the plausibility of the most plausible moral judgement there is (since he claims it is false) against the plausibility of whatever argument he produces (assuming he has one). For instance, suppose that the most plausible moral judgement you can think of is "It is wrong to torture people just for the fun of it;" and suppose that the subjectivist claims that this is not true; and suppose he claims it on the basis that the existence of moral values is incompatible with logical positivism. Then what we have to ask is: Which do we find more plausible, that it is wrong to torture people just for the fun of it, or that logical positivism is true?

This is just an example of the sort of difficulty the subjectivist or skeptic will get into, which convinces me that no argument against objectivism could possibly discharge its burden.

In other words, what Dr. Huemer is saying is called phenomenological conservatism (in this context: phenomenological = pertaining to our observations; conservatism = taking stuff seriously). Which means: if you see that an apple is round, unless there is a good reason for you to think otherwise, you can assume it's round. If you think there are ten bottles left in a pack after you took out two of then, you should treat that thought as a fact, unless someone demonstrates to you that your math or knowledge of facts (e.g., someone taking a bottle without you knowing) are wrong.

The same goes for moral knowledge: if we know that Hitler was objectively evil (because we perceive him to be evil), then unless some other observations tell us otherwise, we should assume he was objectively evil: that he had a property of evil to him (or his actions). In Moral Objectivism, Dr. Huemer refutes a number of subjectivist arguments against objectivism: for instance, that our feeling that Hitler was evil is just an emotion. He says:

Call the first the appeal to introspection. The making of a normative judgement is experienced as just that — making a judgement: i.e., as a matter of good phenomenology, when one considers a moral issue, it seems clear, one is engaged in that mental process known as judgement; one is not primarily engaged in imagination or memory or perception or feeling (though those may accompany the process of judgement, of course). And I think that everybody can see this if they think about it — that is why moral judgements are, after all, called "judgements". 

If someone reports that when he introspects he does not ever detect a process of judgement going on where morals or practical matters (meaning matters of what to do) are concerned, then in the first place, I won't believe it, and in the second place, if I did then I would conclude that the unfortunate fellow is simply unable to grasp moral concepts and is therefore unable to think about them — I would conclude that he is moved by emotions and instincts rather than reason and morality. Moral concepts and arguments are as a rule highly abstract, and the existence of such people as cannot understand them is certainly not inconceivable. Animals are most likely all in that position.

In other words, upon introspection, moral judgments don't "feel" like emotions, projection, social norms that you liked, etc. They feel like judgments: perceptions about reality no different in principle from judgments like "there are ten bottles in the pack" or "apple is round". And, unless there is a good reason to disbelieve this introspection, then we should continue believing it.

You may ask: if moral truths are truly objective, then how do we come to know them and how to we verify that our knowledge is correct (after all, people disagree on morality — even  objective morality — all the time). And isn't there a pernicious is-ought problem that prevents us from deriving any ought statements from is observations of the world?

Dr. Huemer's answer is that we come to know the moral truths intuitively. In a sense, moral knowledge is the sixth sense. Dr. Huemer defends this view in this and some other essays, as well as one of his books, Ethical Intuitionism.

The famous libertarian-anarchist economist and legal philosopher David Friedman also touched on this subject:

Let me suggest an analogy that I find informative. Think of moral intuitions as playing the same role in our knowledge of normative propositions that sense data play in our knowledge of positive propositions. 

The way we choose scientific theories is precisely by taking our sense data as input and trying to make sense of what they tell us. And it would seem very odd to argue that "it is not clear why we need theories at all: we can just consult our sense data" for understanding the world. For one thing, having formed theories, we sometimes use them to conclude that we ought not to believe particular sense data. [...] 

For me, at least, the crucial step to making this account plausible was realizing how shaky the basis is on which we accept our senses' account of the physical world (to the extent that we do). While the grounds for belief in physical objective reality—more precisely, in an objective reality reasonably close to what our senses report--are not as strong as they might at first seem, they are, in my view strong enough. The grounds for belief in a normative objective reality are not, in my view, enormously weaker. [...] 

If you take the sixth sense analogy seriously, the next step is to ask why you believe the other five senses. The answer is not "because I understand how they work." To begin with, you probably don't, and even if you do, Aristotle certainly didn't—and none of us are willing to argue that he ought to have denied the evidence of the senses. 

You believe your five senses because you have imposed on them all the consistency tests you can think of, and they have mostly passed. You see something, your eyes tell you an object is there, you reach out and sure enough you can touch it. The thing is a bell. Last time you tried hitting a bell your ears told you there was a sound; you try it again and it still works. 

Occasionally there is an apparent contradiction—you can't touch a holographic image, and when you hit a holographic image of a bell it doesn't make a noise. But as you get farther and farther into the structure of the physical world revealed by your senses more and more of those contradictions turn out to make sense after all. 

A second set of tests occurs to you. Your senses tell you that other people are very much like you. If so, they should perceive the same physical universe. You ask them, and sure enough they almost always do—again with very rare exceptions such as color blindness, exceptions that turn out, on further examination, to make sense. 

Note, however, that what you are finding to be consistent is observation of very primitive facts—there is a table there, there is not a lion sitting on the table. About the patterns implied by those facts—for example, whether capitalism or socialism results in higher standards of living, or whether the earth goes around the sun or the sun around the earth, or whether paying enough money to the Church of Scientology will turn you into a superman—there is lots of disagreement. 

You conclude that your senses give you a reasonably accurate picture of the base facts of physical reality, consistent with that of almost everyone else, but that reasoning up from there is sufficiently hard, and/or depends sufficiently on the particular subset of facts observed, so that people disagree a good deal—and your confidence about your beliefs on that level should be appropriately weaker. You accordingly conclude that the physical universe is really out there, and the parts you have observed really have about the characteristics you observe. If someone tells you that there is a lion on the table you conclude he is a lunatic. If he is very convincing, you ask a few other people first and then conclude he is a lunatic. 

Now apply the same approach to moral reality. Replace sense perceptions with moral judgements—not grand theories such as "you should never violate rights" but "perceptions" such as "in the following well described situation, person X acted wrongly." Checking with other people you find, pace the ethical relativists, a very high degree of agreement. The disagreement either involves the sort of situation that, on consideration, you find morally difficult or (far more often) disagreement about the assumed facts, not the judgements. 

Some people will find this claim implausible. I offer as one of my reasons for it the following observation: 

I have been arguing politics for a long time. In arguing with people on the left, I find it is very hard to come to an agreement on the assumed facts surrounding the situations we are judging. My imaginary capitalist has capital because he worked hard clearing part of the boundless forest while his employee-to-be was being lazy and living on what he could gather—so it is entirely just that the capitalist gets part of the output of his land and his employee's labor. But the leftist doesn't like that hypothetical. His imaginary capitalist inherited his capital from a father who stole it. I don't like that hypothetical. I conclude that our moral intuitions are similar enough so that the same assumed facts push both of us in the same direction—and since we want to go in opposite directions we want so assume different facts. 

My (very tentative) conclusion is that the normative universe, like the physical universe, exists. Certain ought statements are true, certain ought statements are false. Torturing small children for the fun of it really is wicked. I cannot go behind that and explain "ought" as derived from "is"—or "is" from "ought." Both are undefined terms, which I am confident that normal human beings understand. I can observe "normative facts" and try to form theories about them, just as I can observe physical facts and try to form theories about them. But I should not be surprised if other people form other theories in both cases.

Simple proof that G-d exists

(what is the purpose of this structure?)

In which I prove from evidence that G-d exists and outline my immature ethical theory...


First, let's define G-d for the purpose of this proof as a conscious, willful, purposeful creator of all existence. (I am not saying that that's all that G-d is; I am saying that this is one of His roles/behaviors.) Furthermore, let's assume that all creation is constant, i.e., that G-d is a continuous creator (I will show below why that's important).

I am not completely sure this proof is correct, but I am writing it out just in case.

The outline of the proof is as following:

1. Without G-d, objective morals cannot exist.
2. But morals do exist, per our observation, and they are necessarily objective.
3. Therefore, G-d must exist.

By the way, the part of the proof that most people (including campus Chabad rabbis) oftentimes miss is number 2. Without that part, one can just answer to number 1: "ein hachi nami" ("So what? I agree with you...") and move on without having to accept number 3.


Now the proof itself:

1. Without G-d, objective morals cannot exist.

Evidence for this statement can be presented in multiple forms. For one of them, you can watch this debate video (assuming you agree with the second speaker and not the first):




But here is my own idea of why you cannot have objective morality "simply 'cause": it doesn't make sense.

Ought statements are prescriptive. They prescribe that something should be done for some purpose. For instance, imagine that someone asks you where you should stick needles into a human body. Well, if his purpose is to torture the person, then you might give one kind of answer; if his purpose is to do acupuncture  then you may give another answer (assuming you're an expert at both). But saying that morality is a description of what you must do, "just 'cause", without any particular goal (it's just the right thing to do, but for no actual reason) is nonsensical. It's not saying anything.

One might say that the purpose of moral ought statements is to do good. One ought to do those things that are good and ought not to do things that are bad.

My problem with this definition is that it's circular. We do not have a good definition of what good and bad are outside of prescription. Good and bad are descriptions of certain things that we ought to either gravitate to or stay away from. That is how we define good and bad subjectively anyway. We say that in our opinion (according to our tastes) a movie is good in the sense that it would be "oughtful" to go see it, for whatever purpose (to enjoy oneself, to derive some lesson from it, etc.) — but we see that the purpose must be included in the definition of "good" (movie or anything else); otherwise, it makes no sense to use that concept (as above with the needles).

Well, this is subjective good (a Quentin Tarantino movie may be good for me, for the purpose of enjoyment, but not for my wife who hates violent movies). On the other hand when we say that morals are objective, we mean that objects and events independent of our mind have quality of goodness (or badness) to them. But, as I hope I have shown, the concepts of goodness and badness must include a purpose to them!

But how can there be an absolute, "objective" purpose to the world out there? I walk in a forest and see a beehive. My purpose for it is to eat the honey to satisfy my hunger. The bees' purpose is to keep the honey to feed their larvae. Maybe somebody else's purpose is to take the honey and sell it on the market. How can there be an "ultimate" or absolute purpose, independent of any agents, built-in into the fabric of reality of the beehive? Clearly there cannot be, unless there is one agent who imbues all reality with a purpose: that who created and continues to create the beehive, consciously, willfully, and with a certain goal in mind (so to speak). I.e., G-d (per our definition above).

2. Morals do exist, and they are necessarily objective.

I am not going to provide a full proof for this statement here. Instead, I want to direct my reader to an essay by a philosopher Michael Huemer: "Moral Objectivism" (not to be confused with Ayn Rand's philosophy under the same name). I also encourage you to look at some of his other essays (and an excerpt from one of his books) in the Ethics and Metaethics section of his website.

Dr. Huemer basically argues in favor of the position that things can be good and bad in and of themselves, just like they can be red or green (or two or three in number) in and of themselves, independent of the observer. Please refer to the linked essay for the detailed analysis.

Note that Dr. Huemer is not arguing that objective goodness or badness of things is independent of any source (such as G-d); he is arguing that from our experience of dealing with goodness and badness and intuiting those qualities about events and objects, we must conclude that they are objective and not merely "figments" of our minds (like our tastes or emotions are). Hitler was evil in and of himself, independent of anybody perceiving him as such and not in definition of the targets of his evil acts. I.e., that Hitler killed a lot of Jews was certainly bad for them, but we also think that the fact that he caused all that harm was an evil event in itself, not just from his victims' point of view (and not just because we fear that he or someone else might do the same to us, chv"sh).

(Otherwise, it would be nonsensical to argue that murder is wrong: after all, if it's only wrong subjectively, from the point of view of the victim, then the victim is no longer there! So, once the victim is dead, the murder is no longer wrong, as there is nobody anymore to whom it could be wrong. But a murder is by definition murder only after the victim has been killed.

The best one could say then is that it's wrong because it caused suffering to the victim's family, but that is not what we mean when we say that the act of murder is wrong independently of whatever side effects it caused. I.e., yes, murder is wrong because it causes suffering to the living, but first and foremost it is wrong because it eliminates life — even of a completely useless person who has no relatives or friends. Likewise, we must distinguish between wrongness of murder and that of threat of murder.)

Again, see the essay for more details. He addresses possible objections like: "Well, maybe we are just being empathetic to the victims and that results in a psychological feeling of 'evil' in our mind."

3. But if all the events and objects can be objectively good and evil (shown in 2), but cannot be understood or defined as such without subscribing to them some purpose by an absolute purpose-giver (shown in 1), there must be such an absolute purpose-giver: namely, a continuous, willfull, conscious, and purposeful Creator of all reality. (The Creator must be continuously creating all the reality for us to say that it has a constant purpose.)

Quod erat demonstrandum.


One might point out that the above does not explain why we ought to carry out G-d's purpose for creation. I.e., why G-d's purpose is binding on us. (A wrong answer in my opinion is to say that we must do so out of duty to G-d or because the world is His property. Such answers presuppose that duty or respect for property are moral concepts worthy of consideration, but we are trying to derive objective morality from G-d's purpose for the world, not vice versa.)

My answer is that the above simply defines "objective good" as G-d's purpose for the world and explains why it must be so. It doesn't motivate one to actually do objective good.

First of all, it seems that it's better to have some definition of objective good than no definition at all, or to say that it is just a quality that we perceive in the world. We could say that about "red color": there is no way to explain what it is besides saying that it's just something we perceive as true — aye, that's not the case because now we know that color corresponds tp a wavelength of visible light, but we might have said that before we knew the nature of color (i.e., I sense this thing called color, and there is nothing else I can say about it, just that there is a modality of my consciousness caused by a phenomenon called color out there in the world). But we can't possibly say that about good because, as I explained, goodness is by definition prescriptive: it is that to which we sense a need to gravitate to.

Second, we might say that our intuitive feeling of goodness is one the good's principia cognoscendi (its giluim): the qualities by which it can be recognized (the other being the fact that G-d told us that he wants it to be done). On the other hand, the fact that good is G-d's purpose for the reality is good's principium essendi (its atzmus): the description of what it is. One can still identify good or bad through his intuition, not only through Halacha; I am just explaining what it is that he is identifying. (Likewise a physicist might explain that when I feel cold, I am sensing indirectly the average kinetic energy of molecules around me.)

Third, one could give a number of subjective selfish or aesthetic answers (one wants to be one with G-d; one wants to deserve Heavenly rewards; one simply wants that G-d's purpose be done out of love to G-d). In that case, objective morality derives from one particular case of subjective desires. I am fine with that in this particular case.

Absolute vs. "discovered" morality

 
On a mises.org forum, one author wrote the following:

The intimation of [an article by David Gordon] is that the facts of moral realism are embedded into the very structure of the Universe at a level transcending humanity itself. But there is no reason to believe this is actually the case. What we observe is that the conditions for moral facts reside entirely within the human social order. That is, morality is not a question that has anything to do with the Absolute or the Universe as it would appear to an omniscient being. 

Rather, moral facts are facts merely about the human social order, about human nature. They are facts about human brains, human bodies and terrestrial biology and our terrestrial environment and the particular facts of our situation in this corner of the cosmos. Is it immoral for Martians to kill Martian children? I have no idea. But I know that it is immoral for humans to kill human children. That's because I know the facts about human beings relevant to human morality but I don't know the facts about Martians relevant to Martian morality.

In other words, morality is not absolute. It's something that can be discovered by observing human society. Later, the author explained that we can observe how human societies function (and human nature in general) and derive from those observation the rules of ethics -- rules of how to achieve satisfaction for a human being.

So, for instance, "human beings like company of others; human beings do not like to keep company with people who annoy them; if human beings want satisfaction in their lives, they should not be annoying to other human beings" (obviously, among other things). In this sense, being an annoying person in unethical, but being a nice person is ethical.

In all my conversations with atheists, this was basically their description for "G-dless" basis for morality.

My response:

As I see it, morality needs to be on the one hand applicable to the individual (you can't make a moral prescriptive statement that addresses the needs or goals of a society, since it is the individuals who make choices) and on the other hand universal (we can't say that a serial killer acts morally, since his actions bring him the greatest satisfaction). What's left then? It seems to me that what's left is precisely the Absolute Moral Truth -- applicable to individuals but regardless of their individual preferences. If adultery is wrong it's wrong for everyone and always.

(Of course, there can be built-in conditions. Lying is wrong, but lying to save someone's life is right, since saving life takes moral priority.)

It also seems to me that libertarian morality is based on the assumption that nothing changes between two people existing in a state of nature and them existing in a society. To see whether something is wrong or not, we have to ask: would it be OK for me to do that to you on a deserted island? For instance, would it be ok for me to steal from you, when there is no society around us? If not, then why is it ok for me to steal from you when there is a society, with the society's help?

But if there is no Absolute Moral Truth, then, indeed, why is it wrong for me to rob you when we are alone on a deserted island if I calculate that it is a greater benefit for me to do that than co-exist with you peacefully? Also, if my actions even in a society are secretive enough, I can get away with doing them without changing the society itself. So, one can say: "people's happiness will be the greatest if they live in a society where children are not killed". But what does this have to do with me personally making a decision whether or not to kill a child secretly? Presumably my actions do not affect the society I live in. Also, while a law against child killing (that benefits the society) could exist on a societal level (applicable to all citizens, enforced by all law agencies of the society), it would still not be a moral law, since it would say nothing as to why I need to keep it at all times and in all circumstances.


I have once heard a joke: If you're stranded on a deserted island with limited food and water in a company of either an atheist or a statist, you should kill them immediately, for your life is in danger. Neither of them can conceive of what is moral or right outside of the society. If they are sufficiently liberated from the traditions of their upbringing, they will reason the justification for killing you very easily.

Obviously, one can define "morality" as "a set of rules to achieve satisfaction". (You can define morality as whatever you want -- for instance, "eating meat from time to time"; in that case, a vegetarian is acting immorally.) Therefore, if you are like most people in that you like company of others and it is true that (most of the) people around you don't like jerks, it is immoral to act like a jerk.

But what happens if you don't care about the company of others, but it gives you satisfaction to cause misery to others? Then it suddenly turns out that acting like a jerk is not immoral for you. As I said, you can define morality whichever way you want, but I just don't think that this fits most people's innate understanding of morality.

The Golden Rule

Wittgenstein argued that one cannot have a private language. And by “private language”, I don’t think he meant a language that only one person knew. Tolkien invented an Elven language. (Actually, he invented two such languages.) Before he shared them with the others, he was the only one who knew them, the original speakers having died thousands of years ago...
— Roderick Long, “The Moral Standpoint” (video)

 I was thinking today about how people misuse the so-called Golden Rule of ethics.
        The Golden Rule states: don’t do to others what you don’t want done to yourself. But a question can be asked: why not? What would motivate me not to? As Roderick Long puts it, “what is the force of that statement?” Oftentimes, when the atheist moralists try to explain this rule, they say: the more you do X, the more likely it becomes for X to be done to yourself. E.g., if you murder, you make the society more murderous and increase the probability of someone murdering you.
        Of course, that’s nonsense. Statistically, it works out on the level of a small community, but in a large community because I once steal someone’s wallet, the probability of my wallet being stolen will not increase visibly. Furthermore, what if I do my immoral act in a way that nobody knows about it (and such that it will not leak out). Or, if I am sure that the same thing that I am doing will never be done to me. Just because a Roman senator used slaves didn’t mean that he made it more likely for himself to become a slave. (Also, interestingly enough, when the Africans who had been slaves were freed or escaped from the slavery, when given a chance, they would enslave other Africans. Such way was the nation of Liberia founded — by former American slaves coming to Africa and enslaving Africans from other tribes.)
        Plus, such a definition of morality goes against the common perception of what morality is and against the definition of absolute morality. Such a “morality” is nothing but self-preservation. What atheists usually answer is: “Well, there is no such thing as absolute morality.” I think, again, that answer is nonsensical. Morality has to be absolute. One could say that there is no morality. But they are afraid to go out and say it in such an obvious way (partially because they do not instinctively believe that themselves).


I think on the emotional level, the Golden Rule works by allowing you to imagine what it would be like for you to be at the receiving end of your act. And by feeling emotionally disgusted by it, you can also feel emotionally disgusted to do the same act to others. But, in my opinion, the emotions are not a very solid foundation for morality.
        Just because you feel a certain emotion, does it mean everyone should feel it? Even if everyone feels it but one person — so, why should everyone judge this person for not feeling some emotion? With the emotions being subjective reactions, how can they be a basis for proclaiming something to be objectively moral or immoral? I dislike cockroaches. I find the idea of eating cockroaches disgusting. But do I find it immoral, kashrus and vegetarian issues aside?
        Although, actually, let’s not put them aside. Many people feel (specifically feel) that it is immoral to eat animals. They are disgusted by the idea of a human being eating another living being when he has a choice to eat plants. But many others don’t find eating animals disgusting in any way. (I, by the way, find the idea of eating very intelligent animals such as dolphins, whales or apes disgusting.)
        The same goes with experimentation on animals. Even when the animals are treated humanely (even using the strictest definition of that word) — these people believe that killing animals to find cure for cancer or schizophrenia (one of which I am partially involved in right now) is as immoral as killing people to find cure for cancer. But others don’t feel that way; in fact, they feel that not killing animals to save human lives is immoral. Are the people who feel a certain emotion superior to those who don’t? How do we figure out which of the emotions is right? (Is there even such a thing as a “right” emotion?)
        What if I said that I feel disgusted by the idea of robbing one group of people to help another group out? Many people certainly feel disgusted by this (even though they believe in private, voluntary charity). But many people feel disgusted by the government not robbing rich people to help the poor — in fact, some of these people feel disgusted by the idea that there are rich and poor at all and feel that the rich should be made equally poor, like it was done in Russia. Others find the idea of a bunch of thugs taking away one’s savings that he worked hard all his life to accumulate even more disturbing.
        What are we to do with all these conflicting emotions? Let’s imagine a person incapable of feeling emotions (who agrees that he is deficient in this way, but honestly tries to figure out what is the moral thing to do in each situation — let’s imagine he has enough emotions to care). How is he to figure out what the right thing is? Should he take a poll?


I think the proper application of the Golden Rule is as follows. Suppose one already, for whatever reason, believed in the existence of absolute morality. I.e., he believed there is such a thing as good and evil. And not necessarily as a result of believing in G-d; libertarians, for example, claim to believe in absolute morality — they don’t deny the existence of G-d, but they don’t base their beliefs in morality based on G-d necessarily. (By the way, I think, whatever one says, most people’s view of morality is still absolute — at least in the Western world. Of course, it could be because of the cultural influence of Christianity.) This idea also exists in Judaism — that regarding some (or all) issues of morality, people should be able to figure what is moral and what is not without G-d telling us.
        So, in that case, one could say: what is good for you is also good for me. (Not at the same time. Meaning, if being healthy is a good thing for you, then being healthy is a good thing for me too. Not that being healthy for you is also automatically bringing me good.) So, a simple way to figure out whether something is good is to try it on yourself. If you know that it is something that you would define as something bad for yourself, then it’s also something bad for someone else, unless you can demonstrate that there is an objective difference between you. (E.g., eating peanuts may be a bad thing for me if I am allergic to them, but not for you if you’re not. Of course, then you could abstract and say: if having an allergic reaction is bad for me, it’s also a bad thing for you.)
        Notice that in this case I am not using emotions to justify morality. I already know (from whatever source — again, I am not clear on this) that there is such a thing as good and evil, and both good and evil can be absolute (or, as the philosophers would say, agent-neutral, such as with non-private languages). Emotions merely help me to identify some particular event or object as good or evil. It’s the same as being able to tell whether fish has gone bad by smelling it. What if someone doesn’t have a good sense of smell? Well, he can still agree that there is such a thing as fish going bad; he just can’t use his nose to identify that happening. The same way, a psychopath could still agree to the idea of good and evil; he just couldn’t use Golden Rule for an easy identification of what they were. (Although, a psychopath probably knows when something is bad for him — so, he could still maybe use the Golden Rule in such a case. Of course, his problem might be that even if he knew something was evil, he just wouldn’t care.)


A number of problems can be pointed out. For instance, if I am running for a political office, I wouldn’t like to lose an election. And neither would the person I am running against. So, should I just let him win? If you don’t like the idea of political elections (a libertarian could argue that the situation of majority oppressing the minority through political means is immoral; just like the idea of Windows users forcing Apple users to “come to the light” and start using the PCs would be immoral — why can’t there be multiple law systems in the society just like there are multiple OSs?), you can use the idea of competing for market. I certainly wouldn’t want people to stop buying my product when a newer and a better product is introduced to the market. So, if I can introduce a better product, which will reduce the amount of business for someone supplying an older product, is that immoral?
        Of course, one could answer that the amount of good I do by supplying the product well outweighs the amount of bad I do, but this is already a utilitarian approach which cannot work for praxeological reasons as well as the reason of definition of absolute morality (if killing one person benefits a million people, or if exterminating one particular ethnicity benefits all the others, should we do it?).

So, I suppose I am still thinking about it. One answer could be that the Golden Rule is after all not such a useful rule.
        Alternatively, one could say (again, quoting Roderick Long) that “if I consider my pursuit of my well being as legitimate for me, I have to view your pursuit of your well being as legitimate for you”, and that there is a difference between me pursuing my well being without actively trying to harm you (which may happen if we are pursuing well being competing for the same scarce resources) and me trying to actively harm you.
        Meaning, importantly, that both rules (about legitimacy of my pursuit of well being and of your pursuit of well being) are true true at the same time — and therefore cannot be placed in contradiction of each other. It is ethically permissible for myself to pursue my well being, but not in such a way that will harm your pursuit of your well being.
        How to deal with the situations when the are seemingly in contradiction is what the libertarian view on ethics deals with by basing ethics on the concept of property rights: I don’t have a right to take what’s already yours, but I do have a right to take something which doesn’t belong to you, even though by doing so I am precluding you to use it for yourself. Of course, this leads to a conflict of rights, but since one of us has to win — since both of us cannot use the same object at the same time (i.e., the object is scarce) — let it be the one who homesteaded the object first. But in the cases when there is no scarcity (such as, in the case of intellectual “property”) it is immoral for me to use force to preclude you from using the said non-scarce resource, since it goes against your legitimate right of pursuit of your well being (which, in this case, is not in contradiction with my rights).

Is eating meat the same as cannibalism?

“Why are you in this war?”
“For me rats!”
“Your what?”
“Me rats!”
“What?”
“I think he means: his rights.”
“Oh… Never could understand anyone south of Maryland.”
— Gettysburg, 1993

Do animals have rights? Is eating meat wrong and barbaric? “No,” says Ingemar Nordin in this article.

The main idea is: humans have equal rights with other humans; animals don’t, because they are, well, not humans. Otherwise, their rights would have to be protected against each other — if I cannot kill a cow to eat it, neither can a wolf.

Some people answer that a wolf cannot be judged for following his nature; he does not have a choice about eating a cow. If by that they mean that he cannot make a rational choice — well, that is exactly the point! To have rights apply to you, you need to be a moral subject which requires rationality. (What about children and mentally ill? The articles addresses that too.) If by not having a choice they mean that the wolf is a carnivore — what if people were carnivores? Would animals magically lose their rights? What if someone cannot digest fruits and vegetables or simply needs meat for medical reasons (otherwise, he cannot survive) — do animals lose their rights regarding him, but not others?

The author agrees that animal cruelty “does not belong in any civilized society”, but doesn’t propose how to deal with it (if at all) — I think it is outside the scope of this article.

* * *

The idea of rights is a peculiar one. Where do humans get their rights? Three arguments can be made: from their Creator, from the Nature, from pragmatic convention included in the agreement to live together in a society (if I am going to live in a society with you, I am going to have certain liberties — the same as you or anyone else — that cannot be violated; the only time my liberty to do X can be violated is when it is violating another person’s liberty to do Y, which is considered by the society as more important).

Following the “Creator” argument: well, my religion says nothing about animals having rights. One cannot treat animals cruelly and must ease a struggling donkey’s burden (in fact, even your enemy’s donkey’s burden!), but eating animals is not forbidden — in some cases it’s even required. If your religion says otherwise, you’ll have to prove to me that your religion makes more sense than mine (considering that mine is Judaism, I find that unlikely).

I don’t think the “Nature” argument can be made cohesively: I am yet to be shown how exactly our rights derive from Nature — but even if they did so from our special status as sentient beings in the Nature, animals would lack them precisely because of their different nature from ours (which, I think, is the main focus of the article). If a rational species were to be discovered (or existed alongside with humans — e.g., elves, dwarves, hobbits), I don’t think anyone would argue that eating its members is wrong (although we probably would have to deal with some racism...).

Finally, the pragmatic argument simply has no place for animals in it: human rights exist within the scope of the society to which these humans belong. Animals are not a part of our society.

About abortion

Wait, so I don’t get it: is somebody allowed to kill his Siamese twin or not?

(This is regarding an argument that you’re allowed to kill somebody dependent on your body even if you recognize that he is a human being.)