The New Subjectivism in Morality Brand Blanchard Chapter 3 Intro to Ethics Professor Douglas Olena
Subjectivism 33 When anyone says this is right or this is good, he is only expressing his own feeling; he is not asserting anything true or false, because he is not asserting or judging at all; he is really making an exclamation that expresses a favorable feeling. This remark reflects David Hume s sentiment about values. Vice and virtue are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind. (68)
Positivism 33 If the new view has become popular in ethics, it is because certain persons who were at work in the theory of knowledge arrived at a new view there, and found, on thinking it out, that it required a new view in ethics; the new view comes less from ethical analysis than from logical positivism.
Positivism 33 The judgment that knowledge is good, for example, did not seem to be analytic; [like mathematics] the value that knowledge might have did not seem to be part of our concept of knowledge. 34 Neither was the statement empirical, for goodness was not a quality like red or squeaky that could be seen or heard. So, how should statements like this be explained? 34 The positivists explained value judgments by explaining them away.
Positivism 34 The theory claims to show by analysis that when we say That is good, we do not mean to assert a character of the subject of which we are thinking. I shall argue that we do mean to do just that. The rabbit story
34 Blanchard starts with the thesis he assumes we all agree on: Pain is bad. The rabbit suffers The Positivist suggests that when we hear this story and say something about the rabbit s pain that we are only saying something about our emotional state on hearing about the rabbit s suffering. Blanchard tells us on the contrary, that he is saying something about the pain and suffering the rabbit experienced.
34 Blanchard is saying the rabbit s suffering is bad without anyone hearing about it. The positivist would say that no evil has taken place except when we fabricate it by hearing of the event. This is Blanchard s first argument
34 Blanchard s second argument suggests that if we mistakenly believe the rabbit suffered and later find out it didn t, we are relieved. The positivist would say that the mistaken belief produces the same feeling in us and therefore has the same value as if the rabbit had suffered. 35 Blanchard reminds us that we are not talking about our feelings when we make a remark about the rabbit, but the objective suffering of the rabbit, and that it is a relief to hear that the suffering did not take place.
35 Blanchard s third argument: 1. First hearing the incident, we feel sympathy for the rabbit. 2. Remembering the incident a week later, we do not have the same feeling about the rabbit, though we still believe what happened to be bad as we did at first. 3. The positivist would reply that the recollection is different from the initial response to the incident because our emotion was different. 4. Blanchard disagrees with that assessment. The incident was bad in the same way regardless of my feelings about it.
35 Blanchard s fourth argument: an event should elicit a certain reaction from the hearer. In other words there is a certain fit between the event and the reaction. Blanchard s point is that if a person hears of a murder and is gleefully happy, we think him deranged or mentally ill in some way. This is because we take it that some events are inherently evil and others inherently good.
36 If goodness and badness lie in attitudes only and are brought into being by them, those men who greeted death and misery with childishly merry laughter are taking the only sensible line. This, however doesn t seem to fit with the reality of life.
36 Blanchard s fifth argument: The positivist view makes mistakes about values impossible. 37 There is an old distinction between what is subjectively and objectively right. They [the moralists] have said that in any given situation there is some act which, in view of all the circumstances, would be the best act to do; and this is what would be objectively right. The notion of an objectively right act is the ground of our notion of duty; our duty is always to find and do this act if we can.
37 The new subjectivism would abolish the difference between objective right and wrong at a stroke. If the subjectivist view is correct I may be subjectively right and objectively wrong. Subjectivism prohibits the distinction between right and wrong. We get from subjectivism: If it feels good, do it. That may be right for you, but not for me.
37 If there is no such thing as an objectively right act, what becomes of the idea of duty? Such a view seem to me to break the mainspring of duty, to destroy the motive for selfimprovement, and to remove the ground for selfcriticism.
37, 38 If one were to make this new moral code an international law, the consequences would be catastrophic. At the time of this essay s writing, the cold war between the US and the USSR was going on. If the Soviets had said, we feel like we need to take more territory in Europe. The US under the glamor of this new moral theory would be able to say nothing against that move.