Arguing About Moral Realism, Article Critique Example

This is an argumentative essay which summarized the Journal article “Moral Realism and the Sceptical Arguments from Disagreement and Queerness[1]” which was authored by David O Brink and published by Australasian Journal of Philosophy in 1984. The author based the article on realism in ethics to defend moral realism against the arguments which were presented by J. L Mackie in his book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. David Brink specified that both arguments which Mackie made about the agreement and queerness do not show any special problem for moral realism.

To substantiate his arguments he stated that “Moral realism is best explained as a special case of a global realist thesis”. He further stated that moral realism implies that it has true moral propositions and has objective moral facts. Brink analyzed and refuted Mackie’s arguments from disagreement and queerness and argued that neither argument establishes any special problem for moral realism.

The author disagreed with Mackie in the version that internalism is required by moral realism. He argued that moral facts alone do not motivate an act whatever the moral facts turn out to be but what motivates the action will depend on other circumstances and the moral requirements. The author concludes that internalism is false and it cannot be known priori.

In this article the author has defended the moral realism arguments from disagreement and queerness by offering what he called “a functionalist theory of moral value”. In this theory, moral facts are about human well-being and flourishing as a model specification of moral realist claims, with the implication that the agents will as a matter of fact at least typically be provided with reasons to do the morally correct thing.

The author argued that some moral facts are dependent on unknown circumstances. Brick called Mackie’s modal issue “a Red Herring” and argued that “the truth of moral realism turns on the existence of moral facts not their modal status”. On the genuineness of moral disputes, the author agreed with Mackie but only to an extent that the realist cannot account for the disputes.

The author argued and pointed on the defects of view of moral justification. The author compared how an agreement about general moral principles can be manipulated and used to sort out disagreements about specific moral cases, in the same way an agreement about specific moral cases maybe manipulated and used to sort out a disagreement about general moral principles. To maximize initial commitment and overall consistency explanatory power, the author noted that in ideal circumstances, trade offs will be made in various levels of generality.

A coherentist model of moral reasoning makes it much less likely that disagreements over moral principles can in principle not be solved. In response to this Brink reasoned that firstly, most moral disagreements depend upon disagreements over the non moral facts, which result from willingly ignoring the facts, and mostly for moral or non moral reasons. He noted that at least one disputant will willingly fail to assess the non-moral facts correctly by being insufficiently imaginative in realizing the consequences for the relevant people of alternative actions or policies.

Secondly he reasoned that many moral disagreements result from reasonable but on disagreements which are resolved over the non-moral facts. The correct answer to a moral question can sometimes end up being the correct answer to a non-moral question. But whatever the case, he noted that although difficult and controversial these questions are, the issues which they raise have solutions and can be solved[2]. However, moral disputes will commonly turn into disagreement over issues such as these and mostly of them will be in principle.

The rough idea behind the argument from queerness is that objective moral facts and properties would have to be so different from the sort of natural facts and properties for which we do have evidence that we have a good posteriori reason to reject moral realism. The argument from queerness is supposed to tell especially against the existence of moral facts conceived of as being objectively prescriptive”.  The author explained why objective values are not queer.

The article offer a model specification of moral realism and the author came up with a credible observation which implied that agents generally have reasons to be moral.  He came up with two ideas to the argument from queerness. The metaphysical where he argued that moral realism does not require ontological pluralism; and the epistemological that deals with the question “knowledge that”.

In metaphysical queerness moral realism is defended queerness by adopting the strategy of finding partners in guilt. The author argued that relation that is realist obtains between moral properties and natural or physical properties are neither uncommon nor mysterious. He noted that although it raises an interesting question, what the precise relation is between property identity and supervenience, it is fairly clear that one property can supervene upon another even when the two properties are not identical.

Assuming that materialism is true, all properties ultimately supervene on material and physical base properties. He said that supervenience is a relation of casual constitution or dependence and in this article raised several point points. First that though mental states supervene on physical states, few think that mental states are metaphysically queer. Secondly, those social facts include unemployment, and inflation supervenes upon physical facts, but no one believes that social facts are metaphysically queer. Thirdly, biological states that an organism supervene on physical states; it’s not believed that organisms are queer entities.

Finally macroscopic materials supervene on microscopic physical particles; it’s not believed that organisms are queer entities. It is therefore hard to understand how the realist’s use of supervenes in explaining the relationship between moral and physical properties makes his position queer. The possibility of moral properties and physical property being identical is very low. It’s possible for moral properties to be realized non-materially.   But the highest and very realistic possibility to believe that in the real world moral properties, like other natural properties are realized materially.

The author further offered a model specification of the moral realist’s metaphysical claims. To determine the way in which moral properties, one should look at several possible theories about other kinds of properties. With the functional theories there are a wide variety of the kind of properties which are viewed, the nature of biological psychological, social, and economic properties.

The author raised two important issues in defense of the functionalist’s models; justifiability of morality and desiccation of moral disputes.  He highlighted that there is a reason to believe that moral facts will under normal circumstances provide agents with reasons for action. People will care about their welfare and the welfare of others as long as their welfare is tied to the others. He noted that people have the desires, needs to satisfy others without necessarily benefiting by this action. Thus he supported that human’s welfare and the agents well being will most of the times coincide. In this theory he illustrated that externalism allows a strong justification of morality.

Brick raised three reasons that help in disputing the Mackie claim that the moral and scientific cases are not similar, and the approximate truth of the moral theories are to be doubted in all the response. The author noted that both the degree of consensus from which the scientific theories are correct and the degree of disagreement is most probably overstated. Secondly, he emphasized the amount of antecedent agreement that is necessary to reach into a moral agreement is overstated. Finally that this response only raised a different point of view the argument from disagreement and the author already proved that the moral realist has an arguable account of moral disputes.

Brink confirmed that moral realism is committed to nothing metaphysically or epistemologically queer. The author states that the realist holds that moral facts supervene upon other natural facts and that moral knowledge is acquired in the same way that other knowledge is. The article points that moral realism is plausible enough both metaphysically and epistemologically and the author confirms that Mackie has again failed to shoulder the burden of proof.

In his conclusion Brink stated that neither of Mackie arguments provides good reason for disbelieving moral realism. He introduced and developed a functionalist theory of moral value according to which moral facts are facts about human welfare and flourishing.

References

Brink, David. 1994. “Moral Realism and the Sceptical Arguments from Disagreement and Queerness” Australasian Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 62, No. 2, pp. 111-125 http://sdcc3.ucsd.edu/~ckurth/BrinkonMackie.pdf

Devitt, Michael. 1993. “Dummett’s Anti-Realism” Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 80, pp. 75-76

[1] Brink, David. 1994. “Moral Realism and the Sceptical Arguments from Disagreement and Queerness” Australasian Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 62, No. 2, pp. 111-125 http://sdcc3.ucsd.edu/~ckurth/BrinkonMackie.pdf

[2] Devitt, Michael. 1993. “Dummett’s Anti-Realism” Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 80, pp. 75-76