Ethics 160

Moral Arguments

Reasons and Arguments

• Different claims have different uses in our language. Sometimes, a claim or claims are used as a reason to believe another claim.

• When claims are used in this way, an argument is present. (An argument is not merely a disagreement)

• A claim that is used a reason for believing another claim is called a premise. The claim that is being supported in this way in an argument is the conclusion.

Standard Form

• Arguments are often written in a special format. Premises are numbered, and written above their conclusions:

1.Premise 12.Premise 2C. Conclusion

What makes an argument good?

• It is often taken to be the case that an argument is good if it is persuasive, that is, if people are inclined to accept it.

• People accept all kinds of foolish things. This is no standard of quality.

• In fact, Western philosophy was born when some people drew a distinction between philosophy and sophistry.

What makes a good argument:

• Validity– Means that IF the premises

are true, then the conclusion has to be

– In other words, there is a proper logical relationship between the premises and the conclusion

– In other words, the premises, IF true, really are a reason to believe the conclusion

• Soundness– Means the argument is

valid AND– Means that the premises

ARE true

Examples:

P1: Bill and Hillary Clinton have the same last nameP2: People with the same last name are siblingsC: Bill and Hillary Clinton are siblings

This is a valid argument because IF the premises were true, the conclusion would have to be. The argument is not sound because P2 is false.

Example:

P1: Whoever wrote the Bible is a great authorP2: Charles Dickens wrote the BibleC: Charles Dickens is a great author

This argument is also valid, because IF the premises were true, the conclusion would have to be, but again, it is unsound because P2 is false.

A common moral argument structure:

1. Moral principle (typically contains the word ‘should’, ‘ought’, ‘must’, ‘is right/wrong’, etc.)

2. Statement of a particular case that appleis to the principle.

C. Connects the two statements in a logical way (ends up with the moral approach to the stated case)

Example:1. The new construction proposal would break the state

budget2. The state should not break its budgetC. The state should reject the new construction proposal.

Ways of disputing a moral argument:

• Could claim it is invalid• Could claim that the principle in P1 is false• Could claim that the case in P2 doesn’t in fact

fit the principle.

Truth Evaluable Language• Note that in order to be used in an argument, language

has to be of a sort that is truth-evaluable, that is, that can be true or false. Premises are judged on the basis of whether they are true or false, and arguments are put together so that true premises related in the proper way will generate a true conclusion.

• However, since some kinds of language are not truth evaluable, they are not (and cannot be) used in arguments. Things like questions, commands, exclamations, greetings, etc. are all excluded from use in arguments because they are not statements at all (and thus are not truth evaluable)

Moral Language

• In order to use moral language in arguments we must accept that moral language is truth-evaluable.

• In other words we have to accept that moral language is more like a statement than a command, an exclamation, etc.

• This position is referred to as realism, and commits itself to the existence of moral facts.

Moral Realism• Anti-realists about morality contend that moral language

corresponds with no recognizable category of facts.– Prescriptivists are a kind of antirealist who claim that all moral language is

just a set of commands (thus not truth evaluable) in disguise.– Emotivists are a kind of antirealist who claim that all moral language is just

a set of emotional expressions (thus not truth evaluable) in disguise.• Realists claim that moral language is not in disguise at all and that

what look like truth-evaluable statements really are truth evaluable statements. Realists correspondingly associate moral language with one (or more) of a number of factual categories, a few examples of which are:– sociological belief– human well-being– the outcomes of rational procedures– interpersonal conventions– human well-feeling– natural science– theology

Moral disagreement

• The fact that people disagree about morality does not indicate in any way whether there are or are not moral facts.

• On the contrary, if two people are to have a substantive moral disagreement, there has to be some fact of the matter with respect to morality, or else the moral dispute is just so much useless noise.

Moral Facts

• If someone claims that there are moral facts, they are merely claiming that when someone says “Action X is moral” they might be saying something true, and they might be saying something false. This is a rather unobjectionable claim.

• If someone not only says that there are moral facts, but also says that they know what all of them without a doubt are, then you should start to get skeptical.