18 - Thinking About Values
Many of the important questions we face in everyday life are about values - they serve as standards for us to evaluate people and situations, and guides by which we consider options we will choose and behaviors to undertake. Values are closely related to critical thinking. We may apply critical thinking to consider the values we will adopt, or will at least apply critical thinking to apply the values we blindly accept.
Different Types of Values
The author considers three classes of values:
- Aesthetic values concern our evaluation of art and literature, the standards we have for considering something to be beautiful or appealing.
- Personal values pertain to the premises people accept as bases by which they evaluate things and make decisions about their own lives.
- Moral values are understood to mean the values of a culture, which determine the rules for how people should interact with one another.
The author, and philosophers in general, seem to be most concerned with moral values, as they bear discussion. Aesthetic and personal values are chosen by an individual, and there is much to be considered in terms of defining them - but it is generally considered to be a matter of personal choice, of little concern to others,
Knowing your own personal values enables you to act with ease, certainty, and confidence. Being aware of your values, and being consistent in their pursuit, provides a sense of focus and meaning.
Knowing the personal values of another person facilitates interacting with them, and understanding the choices they make (or can be expected to make).
Consider also the importance that people attach to morality, and insisting that their moral values be upheld - disagreements about morality are among the most hotly debated issues, about which people feel so emotionally attached that disagreements can lead to violence, among individuals and nations.
Moral Values and Normativity
Morality is normative, seeing to define what should or should not happen, or what outcomes are good or bad. It describes not what the world is actually like, but what it ought to be like.
In terms of moral reasoning, whether something is factually true is independent of its moral status. The author suggests that one might find that "eating babies will make your skin more beautiful" might be proven logically and scientifically true. But it still may not be considered moral.
Morality considers what is acceptable according to premises that relate to values, and applies some of the methodology of logic to suggest that a given conclusion is in agreement with values.
Morality and God
God, or religion of some form, is used by some as a basis of morality - it is, in effect, a sort of package deal for them to adopt the values of a given religion rather than developing their own morality by other means.
One of the drawbacks to this system is that religions tend to be vague, inconsistent, incomplete, and self-contradictory. Much debate within religious communities involves attempting to reconcile these conflicts to determine what, in fact, the values happen to be. To make matters worse, there is not a single religion, but many, whose values are in conflict with one another.
Ultimately, religion is a choice of personal values - a person decides for himself which religion to follow, and which aspects of a given religion he wishes to accept for himself. In terms or morality, we generally recognize a separation between the spiritual live and the physical realm, and set aside religion in defining the way in which people in a society interact with one another.
Moral Relativism
Moral relativism is a common compromise, suggesting that there are no absolute right and wrong in morality, but instead it is derived from a particular society, culture, or tradition. In essence, what is right or wrong depends on a person's point of view.
Relativism is compatible with the concepts of individualism and multiculturalism: the acceptable that there is no single true morality makes us tolerate and respect other peoples' morals even if they are very different to our own.
Relativism excludes arguments of fact: where we can use observation and experimentation to prove a truth is objective, it falls outside the bounds of moral relativism. However, there is no scientific method for dealing with moral disagreement, which makes it necessarily subjective.
Moral relativism suggests toleration and respect, but this is not a common practice: people seek absolutes and tend to despise others who do not share their moral perspectives, and seek to do violence against them, up to and including killing others. This is the basis of government in society.
Moral relativism also fails to resolve arguments: ultimately, it leads to mutual understanding of perspectives that do not agree. This is obstructive to social cohesion: a culture is defined by its values, and if there are no common values, there is no common culture.
Absolutism, Relativism, and Contextualism
Absolutism and relativism are opposite extremes, the middle ground to which is contextualism: that right or wrong depends on a particular situation in question. A contextualist compromises on moral absolutes, suggesting that in some situations, what would otherwise be wrong is contextually acceptable.
Contextualism encores us to be cautious and deliberate in our arguments, ensuring that the premises to a conclusion are sufficiently comprehensive. Killing is wrong in most instances, but is permitted in self-defense. Lying is wrong in most instances, but is permitted if the lie does no harm to others. There are always exceptions.
Moral absolutism is entirely incompatible with contextualism, and seeks to define a universal right/wrong that applies in all circumstances. Immanuel Kant's search for a "categorical proposition" that is true in itself and true in all circumstances was a spectacular failure.
Moral relativism is a form of contextualism, though it tends to be related to more long-term conditions (a culture) rather than a specific situation or incident.
Things to Avoid in Moral Discussion
There are certain argumentative tactics or behaviors that are decidedly unhelpful:
- Verbal abuse. An otherwise intelligent debate degenerates into childish name-calling when the participants seek to attack one another personally rather than debate the points of a discussion
- Dogmatism. Avoid arguments based on religion because others who do not share your religious beliefs will automatically reject any premise based solely on religious tenets.
- Arguments of taste. There are many positions based on what is tasteful or distasteful to a person, and it is a mistake to consider them right or wrong. Taste does not derive from reason, and there's little grounds for rational argument.
- Arguments of fact. Moral arguments often appeal to empirical facts, even when those facts are not fully established. A fact is not proven by premises, but by observation, demonstration, and experimentation - or more often reference to secondary research.
- Melodrama. One desperate tactic is to suggest that the conclusion of an argument would be the premise for a different one - if we conclude one thing is acceptable, we must then automatically conclude something else is acceptable (if we allow gay marriage then we will allow people to marry animals, if we allow people to own handguns we will allow them to own nuclear warheads). This is typically a "slippery slope" diversion than a valid argument, or more accurately abandoning the topic to speak about something entirely different.
- Double Standards. Argumentation often leads people to a position they do not personally maintain, but expect others will. It is valid to suggest that an argument is over what should be done and not what is done, but invalid to suggest that different standards apply to different groups.
Four Types of Moral Arguments
The author describes the four main types of argument that are used to explore moral beliefs. (EN: the indication of "four main" is an indicator that this is not comprehensive.)
Arguments Based on Moral Principle
A moral principle is a general rule of morality: whether something is right or wrong, including the circumstances under which it so. Such arguments present two premises: one that describes the features of the argument, and another that considers the morality of those features. The goal of such an argument is to gain a deeper understanding of the moral principle - the reason why it is right or wrong.
We seek to use moral principles to justify our opinions and behaviors, to think and act in a consistent rather than a random manner. In some instances, it is clear, but in others we must reflect upon our principles to ensure we are being consistent.
One common moral principle is that of doing no harm: that people should be free to do whatever they please unless it is harmful to others. It is acceptable to drink to excess, if the only consequence is a hangover. But you should not drink and drive because of the probability that this behavior should be harmful to others. And in that sense we agree that alcohol should be legal but drunken driving should not.
Naturally, this entails a question of what causes "harm." While there is generally accepted that physical injury and pain constitute harm to others, merely being an annoyance often is not - though when the question of noise ordinances arise, most will agree that annoyance is harm to others.
To determine whether a moral principle is acceptable, we may show that it is derived from more basic principles. We might otherwise show it to be consistent or analogous to other conclusions (cheating is wrong because it is like stealing).
Arguments Based on Moral Arithmetic
One common approach is to apply "moral arithmetic" by considering the positive and negative implications or consequences.
Lying to a friend to avoid helping them to cheat on a test is a mixed bag: you are lying to a friend (-) and refusing to help them (-) to uphold academic honesty (+), leaving us with the overall sum of negative, suggesting that the sum of them is negative (you should not lie to them, but that doesn't mean you should help them cheat either).
Moral arithmetic also uses weighted factors - when there is one negative and two positives, the negative may be more heavily weighted (-3 instead of -1) to outweigh the two positive outcomes.
Of course, the assignation of sums is difficult to determine precisely. Why are some reasons more important than others? And if we establish one thing is more important than another, how do we determine its precise mathematical weight?
Particularly in political argument, a head-count is tallied. If something harms two people to benefit ten others, than it is considered to be acceptable. If it kills two people to grant a minor convenience to ten others, some believe that to be acceptable but others do not.
This can in some cases be distilled to a mathematical equation that looks at cost. Adding chlorine to water will increase the number of people who die of cancer, but will also decrease the number of people who will die of a waterborne disease. The two can be analyzed statistically to determine which course of action has the most desirable outcome for the population.
Arguments Based on Rights
"Rights" are central to most political system and are considered to be the most basic premises of any political (which is to say ethical) system. Any argument must therefore consider its impact on human rights, to some degree.
Rights are considered critical for the protection of minority interest from force of government.
They protect the most basic freedom of citizens. However, most rights have restrictions and are not absolute, and are quite often set aside for convenience.
Consider property rights, for example, which maintains that a person designated as the owner of an item has exclusive right to its use, and anyone else who wishes to use it must obtain his voluntary permission. However, personal property may be commandeered or appropriated by a public official at will.
Rights are also conditional upon prerequisites (your right to travel dos not give others the duty to buy a ticket) and on the harm principle (you must refrain from acting in ways that harm others)
There is also an point to be made that rights are not exhaustive: an action that does not violate the rights of others is not necessarily morally right. Rights, like rules, are the codification or moral principles on which there is significant certainty and agreement - hence a person that simply follows the rules is not necessarily moral.
The author briefly mentions the concept of virtues, which are often substituted for values in moral arguments - the difference being that a right is something that we should refrain from violating but a virtue is something we should be encouraged to practice. An argument of rights would conclude that you are not obligated to render aid to another individual, but an argument of virtues would conclude that you ought to do so.
Arguments from Analogy
Many moral arguments are based on analogies, suggesting that a situation in question is right or wrong because a similar situation is known to be so.
For example, you could suggest that prostitution is acceptable because it is similar to most other forms of work, in which a person does something degrading and unpleasant in exchange for money. Since there is nothing morally wrong with being a garbage collector, there is likewise nothing wrong with being a prostitute.
Arguments by analogy are very weak in that they do not directly address the premises of an argument, or address only some of the premises. Such artuments can be defeated by showing (or sometimes even suggesting) that the two phenomena are not analogous, or to suggest a different analogy.