J.L .Mackie's Moral Error Theory

[Consul]

I say that suffering is always bad and pleasure is always good.

If "bad"/good" means "hedonically bad/good" here, you're certainly right, since suffering is always unpleasurable/unenjoyable and pleasure is always pleasurable/enjoyable. But you're not right if those terms means "morally bad/good", since there is nothing morally good about the pleasure a sadistic serial killer experiences while torturing and murdering his victims.

[Felix]

Hereandnow: Hitler enjoyed sending Jews to the ovens, and we would say this is despicable. But the enjoyment as such remains untouched by this judgment, just as his enjoyment of a good cigar is still enjoyment, even though it was enjoyed by Hitler as he bombed London. The despicableness arises only in the entanglement the enjoyment has with other value-entangled facts.

I think you just proved my point (i.e., "that you are confusing moral sensitivity with moral cognition."). There is no moral correspondence between enjoying hurting other people and enjoying the taste of a cigar. The latter has no moral component at all, and the former is a pathological emotional response. Hitler had his cognitive "reasons" for doing what he did, but those calculations become monstrous distortions when viewed under the light of human empathy.

Hereandnow: Since you understand Eastern thinking, consider that when the Buddhist or Hindu settles down to meditate, one way to describe this is disentanglement: the attempt to close off the entangling effects of being in the world and experience "pure" joy. I have long thought they had it right, and it is only now, as deconstruction reveals the "end" of philosophy, are we starting to realize this.

Some consider that to be a temporary and empty ruse. Franklin Merrell-Wolff, upon his awakening, reached the radical conclusion that, "All experience, as well as intellection, is regarded as being, in the last analysis, of only instrumental value, and even experience is regarded as no more than a catalytic agent, valuable as an arouser of self consciousness." One can see then how the terrors of subject-object awareness can serve as the ultimate catalytic convertors.

[Hereandnow]

Consul
Punishing wrongdoers/evildoers (criminals) is hedonically bad (unpleasant) for them, but doing so isn't morally bad or wrong, is it? So (the experiencing of) hedonic badness isn't inherently, necessarily morally bad.

It is an attempt to separate ethical concepts from hedonic ones in order to divest the hedonically good and bad of any moral meaning. If we are confined to speaking of non natural ethical properties as non ethical hedonic properties, then there must be an explanation as to how hedonic properties, like those in extreme suffering, are related to ethics. This becomes untenable in light of the very nature of an ethical act being entirely constituted by the hedonics, for what is it to prohibit torture, to call torture for fun bad, if not to direct attention exclusively to the hedonic badness? It would be at least a categorial error to divide into two, ethical and hedonic, what are the same in nature.

As to the vagaries of episodic ethics, or, ethics entangled in the world (whatever), I simply point out that the matter rests with defeasability, not with the non moral nature of hedonics; it is, that is, the incidental entanglements and the moral equations they generate make for complexity and uncertainty. I hold, and I think the argument above bears me out on this, that hedonic properties are inherently ethical. Putting criminals in jail is always ethically bad, but it is pragmatically good. Of course, the way we speak casually about good and bad does not make this distinction. Such a thing is reserved for a higher order of analysis. I mean, we say "it is morally right he was sent to jail for his crimes" and the like all the time. But this is just casual talk.

Punishing wrongdoers/evildoers (criminals) is hedonically bad (unpleasant) for them, but doing so isn't morally bad or wrong, is it? So (the experiencing of) hedonic badness isn't inherently, necessarily morally bad.

According to moral antirealism-cum-anticognitivism, to say e.g. that killing people for fun is morally bad or wrong is not to describe any real, objective moral property of this action, but to express an aversive, negative attitude or stance toward it that results in the imperative, prescriptive statement: Don't kill people for fun! You ought not to kill people for fun!

But again, the expression of an attitude hardly makes the case. The substance of the judgment lies with the hedonic/ethical nature of the suffering qua suffering. (Although, I do not have full thought on the matter of murder sans suffering, and affairs that we call wrong, but have no suffering component. The wrongness lies with our collective sentiment, and this is a tougher issue.)

[Consul]

It is an attempt to separate ethical concepts from hedonic ones in order to divest the hedonically good and bad of any moral meaning. If we are confined to speaking of non natural ethical properties as non ethical hedonic properties, then there must be an explanation as to how hedonic properties, like those in extreme suffering, are related to ethics. This becomes untenable in light of the very nature of an ethical act being entirely constituted by the hedonics, for what is it to prohibit torture, to call torture for fun bad, if not to direct attention exclusively to the hedonic badness? It would be at least a categorial error to divide into two, ethical and hedonic, what are the same in nature.

As to the vagaries of episodic ethics, or, ethics entangled in the world (whatever), I simply point out that the matter rests with defeasability, not with the non moral nature of hedonics; it is, that is, the incidental entanglements and the moral equations they generate make for complexity and uncertainty. I hold, and I think the argument above bears me out on this, that hedonic properties are inherently ethical. Putting criminals in jail is always ethically bad, but it is pragmatically good. Of course, the way we speak casually about good and bad does not make this distinction. Such a thing is reserved for a higher order of analysis. I mean, we say "it is morally right he was sent to jail for his crimes" and the like all the time. But this is just casual talk.

But again, the expression of an attitude hardly makes the case. The substance of the judgment lies with the hedonic/ethical nature of the suffering qua suffering. (Although, I do not have full thought on the matter of murder sans suffering, and affairs that we call wrong, but have no suffering component. The wrongness lies with our collective sentiment, and this is a tougher issue.)

To quote Hare again:

"Moral statements are made about actions for reasons, namely that the actions have certain non-moral properties. An act was wrong, for example, because it was an act of hurting somebody for fun. This property of moral statements, their supervenience on non-moral statements, is crucial to an understanding of them."

(Hare, R. M. Sorting Out Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. p. 127)

"Both naturalism and my own view lay great stress on the fact that, when we make a moral judgement about something, we make it because of the possession by it of certain non-moral properties. Thus both views hold that moral judgements about particular things are made for reasons[.]"

(Hare, R. M. Freedom and Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963. p. 21)

So, if an action causes hedonically bad experiences (pain or suffering), this can be a good reason for calling it morally bad and thereby condemning it. Reasons for moral judgements are always non-moral facts or properties (of the action or person in question), and this is why the latter are morally relevant. But an important point is that "hedonically good/bad" isn't synonymous with "morally good/bad", and that hedonic goodness/badness doesn't entail moral goodness/badness either.

By the way, why do you think "Putting criminals in jail is always ethically bad"?

[Hereandnow]

Felix:
I think you just proved my point (i.e., "that you are confusing moral sensitivity with moral cognition."). There is no moral correspondence between enjoying hurting other people and enjoying the taste of a cigar. The latter has no moral component at all, and the former is a pathological emotional response. Hitler had his cognitive "reasons" for doing what he did, but those calculations become monstrous distortions when viewed under the light of human empathy.

I think, to use my terms, ethical entanglements are all about reconciling moral conflict, which are ubiquitous, unless you are sitting in a cave somewhere blissed out in nirvana. What is trafficked is value and value is about the concrete experiences we have, the yums and yuks. Herein lies the essence of ethics. These are what we "think" about when we do moral thinking (contrast Kant who thinks all we need do is univeralize our maxims with no reference the consequences or motivation or compassion, in order to act as a good will in good standing). Now the cigar certainly is not without a moral component. If you are enjoying a good cigar and i take it away from you, we will have a moral problem for several reasons, but at the basis of it is that you were enjoying that cigar. Then there is my reason for taking (why, you stole it, and from a child no less!!), then there is your poverty that drove you, and we have here a robust ethical issue. If the cigar smoking child cared nothing about your stealing it, that makes for part of the case. It all comes down to the caring, the pleasure, the denial of these, and so on. These constitute the ethics of the entire affair: one person's having a desirable object, another taking it away, all for the love of yum.

Of course, fairness and justice figure in, but these are due to entanglements of the inequality of distribution. Entanglments make for moral relations, but the working these out is a matter of ethical pragmatics. What makes them ethical at all, I am arguing, is the originary value, the liking, loving, yearning, pining, lusting,and so on. (Originary is simply a term borrowed, which means that from which others things emerge).

As to moral sensitivity, I think this is what makes a moral agency moral. I oppose Kant on this , but not on all things. He put his finger on something important with his idea of duty: the most noble moral acts are done with sacrifice. I think Levinas' is similar but better: the highest attainable faith is in love without reward.

[Hereandnow]

Consul
"Both naturalism and my own view lay great stress on the fact that, when we make a moral judgement about something, we make it because of the possession by it of certain non-moral properties. Thus both views hold that moral judgements about particular things are made for reasons[.]"

"Certain non-moral properties": would you give me an example?

By the way, why do you think "Putting criminals in jail is always ethically bad"?

I meant to say metaethically bad.

[Hereandnow]

Consul
So, if an action causes hedonically bad experiences (pain or suffering), this can be a good reason for calling it morally bad and thereby condemning it. Reasons for moral judgements are always non-moral facts or properties (of the action or person in question), and this is why the latter are morally relevant. But an important point is that "hedonically good/bad" isn't synonymous with "morally good/bad", and that hedonic goodness/badness doesn't entail moral goodness/badness either.

It is clear I disagree with Hare and you on this. I feel my objections have not been addressed.

[Hereandnow]

Felix: I think I called myself a cigar smoking child in my post. This is not at all the case.

[Felix]

Hereandnow: I think I called myself a cigar smoking child in my post. This is not at all the case.

Actually you did not say you were smoking it, just enjoying it, so I presumed it was a candy cigar. However if you were smoking cigars as a child, shame on you, you little hoodlum! I would not consider it immoral of your parents to take them away from you.

Hereandnow: Now the cigar certainly is not without a moral component. If you are enjoying a good cigar and I take it away from you, we will have a moral problem for several reasons, but at the basis of it is that you were enjoying that cigar.

Well sure, we all hate to lose material things we value (especially those marvelous candy cigars imported all the way from Chillicothe, Ohio), but if I am emotionally intelligent, my concern for the cigar stealer and the enjoyment I will derive from settling the dispute with him will be greater to me than the transient sensual enjoyment of smoking (or eating) the cigar. That is, the more refined my moral sensibilities are, the less attached I will be to gratifying my sensual and material desires. The fact that we can temper and refine our appetites shows that our morality does not have to be defined by them. Kant's concept of the "good will" that can control our passions is relevant here.

[Hereandnow]

It is clear I disagree with Hare and you on this. I feel my objections have not been addressed.

Consul and Felix: I think I am able to see where argument can stand in the way of clarity. It comes to the point where philosophical issues become rhetorical because the issues yield to the meanings of words and lose something essential.

Look: put a spear in my kidney and I suffer profoundly. This is ethically foundational, and without this kind foundation there would be no ethics; ethics would vanish just like economics would vanish without the notion of an exchange of goods. Ethics and existential suffering and joy (and all that lie therein) therefore are of the same nature or essence and this means that you cannot neutralize the existential end by calling it hedonic. (I would also argue that this term is not ethically neutral, obviously, given that it is just a synonym of what I am called the existential end; but then, it does conntatively move away from ethical language.)

The onus is on you to tell me how it is that something that is without, as you claim, ethical meaning, like hedonics (and you have both claimed this), can stand as the meaning foundation for things that are ethical. It makes no sense to divide the ethical from the actual (to use the latter term loosely).

I certainly CAN see why you would want to endorse this division. If you admit that hedonics is inherently ethical, then the world changes, and radically so, as I have said, for the do's and don't's and right's and wrong's that we argue about all the time in ethical issues take on the, if you will, gravitas of eternity. Does this mean the the pettiness of our daily affairs become momentous? Yes and no.

Keep in mind, hedonics is what Being "does": the writhing about in the agony of 105 degree temperature is no less a fact of the world than plate tectonics (It is the ethical "wrongness" that Wittgenstein will not discuss. But then, he does discuss it.). The argument I present puts questions to Being as such for IT"S "behavior". Being as such is "committing" atrocities when tsunamis descend upon cities. The point here is that if you commit a morally condemnable act, like knowing the tsunami is coming and telling no one just to watch them drown and burn as the oil lamps spill into the water (Lisbon, 1755), the entire moral thrust of the wrongness of what you do issues from what the (very accurate, say) hedonic calculator tells us.

Ethics issues forth from Being (not in the Heideggerian sense, if you follow, but in the Kierkegaardian sense of "actuality" and the Levinasian sense of the Other. I put this here just to remind you that there is literature out there that, if read thoughtfully, can rearrange one's thinking. Phenomenological philosophy frees us from the prejudices of scientific models of the world and lets us look clearly,free of presuppositions, at what presents itself[/i] ) itself, and not from the interpretative institutions of language and culture.

Treating Being as an ethical agent?? Not really. Thinking meets its master here, which is why terms like "metaphysics" are not meaning.

[Hereandnow]

meaningless, that is.

[Consul]

The onus is on you to tell me how it is that something that is without, as you claim, ethical meaning, like hedonics (and you have both claimed this), can stand as the meaning foundation for things that are ethical. It makes no sense to divide the ethical from the actual (to use the latter term loosely).

There is a logical "division" in the sense that no is logically implies an ought (not), and that non-moral goodness/badness isn't the same as and doesn't logically imply moral goodness/badness (or rightness/wrongness). Nonetheless, moral judgements/statements aren't made independently of non-moral facts, including (socio-)psychological facts about what I/we want, desire, like, or prefer. For example, when I say "You ought not to do x", there is not only a prescriptive element involved but also a descriptive one: "…(because) x has the non-moral property y, and I/we don't want y".

"[P]rescriptivists hold that moral statements are expressions of volition (in a broad sense in which it covers Kant's rational will and Aristotles boulesis or rational desire)."
(p. 21)

"[P]rescriptivists hold that in making a moral statement we are expressing our rational will; and if someone else wills something different, the disagreement has to be resolved by reason."
(pp. 21-2)

"The relation between the prescriptive and descriptive elements in the meaning of moral statements has been much misunderstood. The prescriptive meaning is the function all normative and evaluative statements have of guiding our actions. This shows up in the fact that someone who makes a statement about his own proposed actions but does not act accordingly exposes himself to a charge of speaking insincerely, as also does someone who makes one about other people's actions but does not will them (in the above broad sense) so to act.

The descriptive meaning is the standard or criterion or reason or principle in accordance with which the statement is made. For example, if I say ‘You ought not to say that, because it would be a lie’, I am applying the principle that one ought not to tell lies. The ‘because’-clause does not merely repeat the ‘ought‘-statement: it adds a reason for it. A common mistake is to confuse the content of moral statements with the reasons for them. That this is a mistake is shown by the fact that diferent people might make the same moral statement for quite different reasons: they might disagree radically in their moral principles. They would then be giving the same prescription, but disagreeing about their reasons for it."
(p. 22)

(Hare, R. M. "Prescriptivism." In Objective Prescriptivism and Other Essays, 19-27. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.)

[Felix]

Hereandnow: It makes no sense to divide the ethical from the actual (to use the latter term loosely).

As Consul explained, the two are being integrated rather than separated: ethical prescriptions are based on the knowledge and description of actual conditions, just as in science where technical procedures are formulated from descriptions of material actions.

[Hereandnow]

Consul:
There is a logical "division" in the sense that no is logically implies an ought (not), and that non-moral goodness/badness isn't the same as and doesn't logically imply moral goodness/badness (or rightness/wrongness). Nonetheless, moral judgements/statements aren't made independently of non-moral facts, including (socio-)psychological facts about what I/we want, desire, like, or prefer. For example, when I say "You ought not to do x", there is not only a prescriptive element involved but also a descriptive one: "…(because) x has the non-moral property y, and I/we don't want y".

No is logically implies an ought?? This is why Heidegger abandoned western philosophy and its presumptions. How can you separate is from ought if you cannot say, plausibly, what 'is' is? Do this, and then you can tell me how ethics is not in Being. But you can't do this, because ethics not only is, it is the most salient feature of what is. Ethical ought is quite clear, and is, indeed, the only clarity being has to offer.

Addressing the matter of Being come prior to ethics in analysis, and the is/ought problem is conceived as if the question of Being were somehow sufficiently understood.

[Hereandnow]

Felix:
As Consul explained, the two are being integrated rather than separated: ethical prescriptions are based on the knowledge and description of actual conditions, just as in science where technical procedures are formulated from descriptions of material actions.

Note that in this the meta ethical "property" is altogether missing. Moore thought of it like this: Observe the color yellow. As such, it is not a concept of "parts", like, say, being a librarian or a bank teller. I think that value-in-ethics is the only thinking that is really like this. That yellow patch before my eyes, without a body of interpretative possibilities we bring to it, is utterly transcendental. It SPEAKS nothing to us at all; it has no cognitive dimension whatever and nothing can be said about it since the assumption is that it is without the interpretative possibilities that would give propositional meaning to it.
Value is very different, because it "says" something, namely, that something is good or bad,which is its nature. Now, good and bad are terms that belong to a strictly interpretative body of thought, true enough, and so I have to admit that the world "speaking", if you can stand the quasi metaphor, what it is in itself ( a Husserlian idea. See his phenomenological reduction; see his Ideas, his European Crisis essay, and so on. Not that he is always right, but that he introduces a perspective that Consul's analytic philosophy knows little of) is difficult to fathom; value as I am using the term, is not difficult to fathom at all, evidenced by terrible suffering (again extreme examples are the most vivid and compelling).

Prescriptive statements are contingent upon this simply quality. When you talk about "actual conditions", for me, these are not that from which ethicality derives, or on which it is 'based", which makes no sense for reasons I gave, it is rather embedded in actuality. Actuality is inherently bad or good, or entangled in various competing affairs so it's difficult to say.

My side of this issue wins: it is patently true that what makes ethics even possible is the value in actuality. Without this, as I have said, ethics vanishes. Think about this. If something S ceases to be what it is upon the deleting of X, then X is an essential part of S. Trivially true.

And how does this talk about ethical prescriptions "based on" actual conditions make sense if actual conditions possess nothing of ethics? I know I raised this question before.