Thread by @EveKeneinan

“Without Morals” [THREAD]

James King @jamespking1963 accuses me of arrogance for holding "those who have as a guide to life a base different from [mine] are without morals."

Now, I don't hold that, and said so, so that's sufficient refutation, but I want to discuss the IDEA.

First, to get small point out of the way, even if I were arrogant, or unprincipled, or degenerate, or anything of the sort, nothing about 𝙢𝙚 would change a thing about Brian Sims' hypocrisy, as per my original tweet:

Let us consider the phrase "without morals"? What does it mean?

I will chose an example moral view one may (or may not) hold:

"Murder is wrong."

The FIRST way to believe this is to hold it as JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF. In that case it would count as moral KNOWLEDGE.

This is the best way to hold it, and as a professor of ethics, what I do is spend a great deal of time teaching students how ethical beliefs might be JUSTIFIED.

SECOND, one could hold "murder is wrong" as an UNJUSTIFIED true belief. Perhaps you were merely taught it growing and it "seems right" to you and that's all there is to it.

This is not bad. It has an up side and a down side.

The up side, as Socrates notes, is that true opinion is just as good a guide to action as knowledge. Someone who truly believes "murder is wrong," even without justification, in unlikely to murder.

The down side, as Kant notes (and Socrates too, to be fair), is that one whose belief is UNJUSTIFIED by reasons is almost defenseless against sophists who DO have arguments. One's believe is not FIRM, because one cannot DEFEND it.

THIRD one could believe "murder is wrong" on the basis of FAILED JUSTIFICATION, that is, appeal to something as a justification for one's belief that rationally fails to justify it, e.g. "murder is wrong because of evolution."

Here, a basis is appealed to that can't do the work.

One might make a case for murder being wrong on the basis of evolution, but one could just as easily make a case that murder is RIGHT on the basis of evolution: that is what the Social Darwinists 𝙙𝙞𝙙 after all.

Or Nietzsche:

FOURTH one could hold that murder is wrong on the basis of a PSEUDO-JUSTIFICATION such as the ethical subjectivist's "murder is wrong because I decided it is wrong (to me, presently)."

This is actually the repudiation of rational justification and the reduction to pure 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡.

Moral subjectivism does not justify at all, since the subjectivist's "murder is wrong" is something he may un-decide at his whim. It is really "murder is wrong, until I change my mind, which I may do at any time for any reason or no reason."

FIFTH, one can simply not hold that murder is wrong. If this is the case, the person in question is certainly radically morally deficient in some way, although he may have other moral beliefs which are true—although it would hard to see how they could be consistent.

So we have

1 Moral knowledge
2 True moral belief without any justification
3 True moral belief with a failed justification
4 Moral belief indifferent to truth since it is a function of will or choice
5 Immoral belief

Who here is "without morals"?

Case 1 is person who has morals.

So is case 2, although his morality can be undermined by sophistical arguments or social pressure more easily than 1.

Case 3 is worse off than case 2, because his false principle of justification could easily lead him to accept IMMORAL views on the basis of his failed principle of justification.

For example, it isn't hard to get "rape is not wrong" out of an "evolution-based" ethics, since (1) rape occurs in the natural world, and (2) does so enough to be selected for as a strategy that at least survives.

What about the suffering of the victim of rape? Or the violation of her right (or his) rights? Evolution doesn't care about suffering, only reproduction, and it certainly doesn't support a belief in "rights."

So a Case 3 person is not "without morals" but because his basis cannot justify his morals, and may will justify what is immoral, he is not well-off ethically.

Case 4, the subjectivist, I would say is without morals. He is not without "morals" but "morals" and not morals is all he can have, since all his moral beliefs are subject to his will, which is subject to nothing, no moral rule or standard.

And Case 5, the immoral man, is obviously "without morals" in a significant way.

Most non-theists have morals (or "morals") but fall into Cases 2, 3, or 4, being unfortunately heavily loaded to Cases 3 and 4.

I have never claimed non-theists are necessarily without morals—only that they have no JUSTIFICATION for their morality.

In Western society, which is still living largely off Christian moral oxygen, one can hold a mostly true set of moral beliefs, without being able to justify them, because they seem (in a post-Christian context) "obvious."

Nietzsche discusses this often:

To have a true foundation and justification of morality is best. Next best is to have true beliefs without knowing why.

False justifications or non-rational "justifications"—will, choice, emotion, "obviousness"—are hit or miss, and worse than having no basis in some ways.

An unjustified, falsely-justified, or pseudo-justified morality will always have something irrational and arbitrary about it.

Those are bad ways to be, because while they 𝙘𝙖𝙣 hit the mark, their aim is always necessarily off.

And of course the immoral man isn't moral.

P.S. re: Brian Sims

Sims himself seems to be aware (somewhat) of his own hypocrisy, since he refers to pro-life Christian protestors as “pseudo-Christians.”

He’s wrong, of course. Here’s an excerpt from the Didache, the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”, one of the oldest non-inspired Christian texts from the FIRST CENTURY. So, yes, Christians have opposed abortion since Christianity has existed: