Ethics is Dumb.
Back in January of 2008, Caleb made a post about a conversation he had with his sister-in-law regarding rightness and wrongness. I stated in the comments to that post that "ethics is dumb" without providing an argument because, well, I did not know what the argument was. I knew that ethics was dumb, but I did not know why. After thinking about it for over three years, I think I have a tenuous grasp on what might be an approximation of the start to the argument. Here's the beginning of my problem: I do not know what it means to say that something is unethical.
Let me qualify that: I know how to talk about ethics. Yet while I know what words to use, when to use the words, and how to arrange the words in such a way as to articulate an argument to which I can affix the name of a particular philosopher, I do not know what the words are about, to what the words refer. Presumably, we want to say that ethics has to do with morality, and morality has to do with right and wrong, good and bad. But those are the words the meanings of which I do not know. What the fuck is good? What is goodness?
Recently, in a class, the professor asked about the ethical questions one could raise of particular bits of software that allow a person to gain access to an otherwise restricted wireless network. My initial response to his ethical concerns was to discuss the legality of the software. When another student pointed out to me that ethics and legality were two different things, I realized I was confused.
Legality makes sense insofar as legality is the result of a system of punishments. If X is illegal, and a person is caught doing X, then that person will be punished. So, we can restructure the statement "It is illegal to steal" as "one who steals, and is caught, will be punished via the legal system." The term legality, the notion of legality, can be explained via terminology that is not simply a restatement of legality. We can discuss legality in terms of punishment.
But we cannot do the same thing for ethics or morality. To say that "x is unethical" is not to say "one who does x, and is caught, will be punished." Ethics and morality do not entail punishment in the same sense as legality. So, the rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness, of ethical or moral claims cannot be explained via an appeal to punishment. What, then, do these terms mean?
Here is the way A.J. Ayer tries to explain ethical and moral statements:
The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content. Thus if I say to someone, "You acted wrongly in stealing that money," I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said, "You stole that money." In adding that this action is wrong I am not making any further statement about it. I am simply evincing my moral disapproval of it. It is as if I had said, "You stole that money," in a peculiar tone of horror, or written it with the addition of some special exclamation marks. … If now I generalise my previous statement and say, "Stealing money is wrong," I produce a sentence that has no factual meaning—that is, expresses no proposition that can be either true or false. … I am merely expressing certain moral sentiments.
If Player A says, "you acted wrongly" what they are actually saying is "I disapprove of how you acted." or "How you acted makes me sad." This is not a statement about reality or the act, but rather is a statement of how one feels about the act. At the moment, it seems to be the case that Ayer is correct. Or, I cannot think of a reason for which he would be wrong.
I have a similar feeling with regard to G.E. Moore:
It may be true that all things which are good are also something else, just as it is true that all things which are yellow produce a certain kind of vibration in the light. And it is a fact, that Ethics aims at discovering what are those other properties belonging to all things which are good. But far too many philosophers have thought that when they named those other properties they were actually defining good; that these properties, in fact, were simply not "other," but absolutely and entirely the same with goodness.
When one tries to define "goodness" they redefine it with a term that is equivalent to "goodness". Good is good. Or, we point to a thing and say, "that is good." But in our pointing, we are not indicating some empirical trait of the thing. Instead, we are simply proclaiming that we affix to the thing the label "good". But what can that label mean other than "it makes me happy"?
When I think of my own use of these terms, I can admit that I am simply making emotional proclamations. If I say that an ex was "wrong" to break up with me, what I am saying is that "It makes me sad that she broke up with me." Or, I can appeal to a notion of an ideal world. So, "she was wrong to break up with me" means "in an ideal world, she would not have broken up with me." But what is "ideal world" doing there? Why, it's simply, "the world that would make me the most happy", and we're back at the initial problem.
I've been thinking about this for over three years, and I can't think of a way to get ethics and morality, rightness and wrongness, goodness and badness, to mean anything other than happiness and sadness. Or, well, I can think of ways to get out of emotivism, but all of those arguments are fucking moronic. For example, we could be moral realists and argue that "good" and "bad" are qualities of things that exist out in the world, that if we look hard enough we could find "good" in a couch. But, come the fuck on; that is retarded. Or we could say that ethics and morality have to do with "God's law". But then we've made an ontological claim (God exists) and we've collapsed morality and ethics into legality.
If anyone has any ideas for how to get ethics to be sensible and keen, then I'm entirely willing to listen. But as far as I can tell, after thinking about this shit for a while, these are the only three ways to understand ethics:
1) Goodness : Badness :: Happiness : Sadness
2) Good is behind that couch.
3) Ethics is just another legal system.
One is retarded. Two is super-retarded. And three just dissolves the issue.
If you're wondering why this bugs me, it's not only because I like to argue. The problem is that I cannot think of a reason for which I need to act ethically. I can understand why I follow the law: I do not want to be punished. But with respect to ethics and morality...why the fuck would I be ethical or moral? If X is unethical, but in doing X I am in no way harmed and, in fact, benefit, then why not do X?
If X behooves me, then I probably ought to do X.
If X harms me, then I probably oughtn't do X.
However, that's not ethics or morality; that's just the basic operative norm utilized by any properly functioning sentient being. And for the life of me I cannot think of a reason for which shoving ethics into that structure in any way benefits me, or anyone else. That is, of course, unless in getting someone else to internalize a system of ethics I am able to manipulate and exploit them.
But, I mean, that's just me being an asshole.
16 comments:
I’m pretty sure that ethics is something the ruling class made up thousands of years ago in order to control and exploit / manipulate the masses. So, that puts ethics in the same category as religion and Cadbury Crème Eggs.
I once asked my class if they thought an artwork we looked at was unethical. Only one student thought so, an older non traditional student. The rest felt than anyone can do what they want. The artwork involved stealing a brand icon and creating an elaborate hoax that Nike was going to rename a beloved park and put a giant Nike sculpture in the park. the whole thing was a lie.
My point is, that you do not have to worry about ethics. The chicken of tomorrow does not care for ethics.
I tried to talk to my students about ethics last week in logic, because I did not want to teach the material I was supposed to cover.
The problem is that most students are relativistic dogmatists. They tend to go with either "anyone can do what they want" relativism or "well, from this perspective / culture" relativism. But if one can think of interesting ethical scenarios, then they turn into dogmatists. And i'm not sure what to do with that.
It's entirely possible that ethics has ceased to mean anything outside of limited academic circles. But, if we keep the language around, then what do people mean when they say that X is ethical / unethical? It does not seem to mean anything other than it makes me happy / unhappy.
I think apathy plays into it as well.
Is it just apathy? Or are ethics inherently rooted in a concept of relativity?
I wonder if it's less to do with the language of "(dis)pleases me" and more to do with the laziness of assuming the same situations hold for non-shared circumstances. In other words, two people talking past one another on key particulars.
Kinda like saying I'm playing a Blue Deck in Magic. Which.. I totally am, the major mechanisms are blue creatures and a blue enchantment.. But.. I'm not playing a Counter Deck. Or a traditional bounce deck. Or flyers. Or.. really using any islands whatsoever.
Or saying Kyle's playing a weenie deck. Made up of 1 and 2 drop slivers.
"Or are ethics inherently rooted in a concept of relativity?"
There was a great span of time during which ethics was not thought of as relativistic. So, it is probably not "inherently" relativistic.
Moreover, I do not know how the phrase "inherently relativistic" is meaningful, given that if X is inherently relativistic, then it is not relativistic insofar as it has inherent qualities. You could say that ethics is relatively relativistic, but to make it relativistic you would have to say that it is relatively relatively relativistic. But then you would have to say that is relatively relatively...
"the laziness of assuming the same situations hold for non-shared circumstances."
That seems like something one of my students would try to say. The problem is that most of my students are realists, they think the world exists independent of their thinking /experiencing it. I put a chair in front of the class and ask them how they know it exists. They talk about seeing it, touching it, hearing it when i smack it. Ok, fine.
Then I throw the chair out in the hallway.
They think the chair still exists, despite the fact that they have no immediate sensations of it. Fine, but that claim means that they think there exists an external world within which the chair exists independent of their sensations.
If we maintain that, then we maintain that there is a world that exist, in some sense, which means a shared situation. That is the situation to which, i think, ethics points. I am happy at the death of Player A while you are sad at the death of Player A. Fine, but in the world is Player A's death a happy or sad / good or bad thing?
I would actually argue with you about which situation is lazy. You seem to think that laziness occurs when we claim similarity. But I think that laziness occurs when we claim difference.
If we claim that there is an overall similarity, then we have to discern that similarity. That requires some work. But no work is required to proclaim, "it is all relative to any perspective, flibbity floo blaa blaa" and wave our hands at any further discernment or inquiry.
Post-modernism is the lazy path wherein we abandon notions of Truth in order to permit anyone to say anything. When we actually maintain a standard, work and effort are required.
Replying as I read here, but..
- Would that span of "time" be one in which all evidence comes from the same cultural thread?
And things are obviously capable of inherently being relevant. Being that I'm fond of, and possibly reliant upon Magic as our only natural co-conversant language, mana costs are relative to tempo, reliant upon context of format.
Hrrrrmn.. you .. get into something there at the end.. shared situations that posit the WORLD as having an opinion.
And.. that's FAR too interesting for my current 14% beer-imbibing state. (Laundry DEMANDS I prepare myself, you understand)
Typically, when a person says, "X is dumb," what they mean to say is, "I have no understanding of X." I believe in this case, the opposite may be true.
Despite that, humor me while I say this out loud to see how it sounds:
Ethical behavior is strictly self-interested behavior which supposes the precedence of the community over the individual. "I can't be without others, so it is best for me to not screw them over, etc."
*for myself, to not screw them over, etc.
@Ros:
"Would that span of "time" be one in which all evidence comes from the same cultural thread?"
It would be a span of time during which persons were not pussies, and so maintained the ability to tell different persons that they were wrong, rather than saying that they were correct in a different way.
"mana costs are relative to tempo, reliant upon context of format"
The mana costs are absolute. Fork costs RR. If one has an ability that lowers the cost, then the cost that is lowered is still RR. We could argue that the the value of fork fluxuates if we place the value in a context. But if we place the value in the thing, itself, then the value never changes.
"shared situations that posit the WORLD as having an opinion"
It's not that the world has an opinion. It is that "good" or "bad" are qualities of things in the same way that a particular structure that reflects the wavelength blue is a quality of a thing.
People tend to dismiss this, and argue that "good" or "bad" happen when a person assesses a thing with respect to a particular end or context. So, nothing is good or bad in itself.
The problem is that kind of argument results in this sort of situation: The taste of a strawberry only exists when strawberries are tasted. Prior to strawberries being tasted, there did not exist "taste of a strawberry", since it only exists when strawberries are tasted. Strawberries could have existed, and the chemical structure of them could have existed, but their taste did not occur until they were tasted.
Unless we want to articulate a qualitative difference between "good", a quality that arises when persons consider X, and "taste of X", a quality that arises when persons taste X.
@Caleb:
"Ethical behavior is strictly self-interested behavior which supposes the precedence of the community over the individual. "I can't be without others, so it is best for me to not screw them over, etc."
Couple things.
“strictly self-interested”
That gets into the question of whether or not altruism is possible. Of course, altruism is not possible, so it’s not a very difficult or interesting question. But, some people really like to raise it. If we want to skip the altruism question, then we could articulate self-interested as “makes me happy”, and then we’re back to that emotivist / emotional reading.
“community over the individual” / “not screw them over”
It seems like laws handle this. Or, if there are rules for not screwing over others that do not have to do with legality, I am not sure that those sorts of rules are ethics. I mean, is it unethical for me to not drive a friend to the airport? I could screw someone over by not driving them to the airport when I have the ability to do so. But, is that unethical?
I could also screw someone over by not letting them go in front of me in the checkout line. But, as we learned from the Berenstain Bears, if we always let everyone go in front of us in the checkout then we will never get to check out. And Papa Bear will have none of that.
Also, the “not screw them over” criteria doesn’t seem to account, at all, for the ethics of vegetarianism / veganism / and that sort of bullshit. I’m pretty sure that my eating a duck is not screwing you over. Unless it happens to be your duck.
Your definition also seemed to have the feeling of a notion of “there are rules, that are not laws, to which one is beholden.” And I have no idea what to do with that. That may be my biggest issue with ethics.
If we have ethical rule X, and I break ethical rule X, and nothing problematic, at all, happens to me then in what sense was X a rule? X seems, at best, to be a polite suggestion. But we don’t seem to want to say that ethics is the study of polite suggestions.
"Or, if there are rules for not screwing over others that do not have to do with legality, I am not sure that those sorts of rules are ethics."
Is the bro code a system of legality or ethics?
"Unless it happens to be your duck."
Or, unless I am the duck. Veganism is an expansion of the community to all things with faces.
Are there penalties associated with breaking all laws? Could the censure of your peers be punishment in a legal ethical system?
"But we don’t seem to want to say that ethics is the study of polite suggestions."
I like the ring of this. Behave ethically on pain of being an asshole. What of being an asshole? Well, you're an asshole.
"Is the bro code a system of legality or ethics?"
Or, better, what if Player A says it is unethical to violate the bro code, but Player B says that the bro code is, itself, unethical, because it is sexist? Now we have unethical ethics.
We have legal systems within which there are laws. We have ethics, whatever the fuck that is, within which there are rules or laws or ideals or fuck. We have games such as Magic that have their own rules.
It seems like ethics is concerned with oughtness. The bro code is a list of thou shalts and thou shall nots. But ethics is about what one ought to do, which is what one should do, and as we have previously established, should is a funny word.
The Bro Code does not seem to be a list of shoulds. It seems to be a list of what it is to be a bro. If you fail to follow the bro code, then you are not a bro.
"Veganism is an expansion of the community to all things with faces."
It is quite fortunate that pneumococcus does not have a face. It is also quite fortunate that carrots do not scream when they are chopped into pieces.
"Could the censure of your peers be punishment in a legal ethical system?"
I guess we could count social censure as a punishment, unless we want to only count as punishments those sorts of activities which are systematic reprimands. But that seems stilted and unlikely.
What if I do something unethical and am not punished. Moreover, what if I do something unethical and am rewarded? With respect to legality, we simply say that one did not get caught or one exploited the system. But persons do not seem to want to say that violations of ethics are something at which one gets caught; they want to maintain that ethics are internalized such that one would punished their self.
My question is why in the name of holy fuck would anyone ever punish their self?
"Behave ethically on pain of being an asshole. What of being an asshole? Well, you're an asshole."
That is where it seems to end, yes. Unethical people are assholes. But assholes are comfortable being assholes. So, the asshole does not seem to have a problem.
Ought
1. (used to express duty or moral obligation)
2. (used to express justice, moral rightness, or the like)
3. (used to express propriety, appropriateness, etc.)
4. (used to express probability or natural consequence)
Ethics seem to be 1 and 2. Duty is stupid. I'm not sure why anyone is obligated to be moral. Justice is an antiquated concept. Moral rightness seems to be redundancy of undefined terms. The "the like" is my new favorite phrase to ever appear as a definition.
As for definition 3, that seems to be less ethical and more social norms. Propriety deals with how to drink tea with the queen. Appropriateness deals with farting in elevators.
One could argue that ethics are simply social norms. But, and I may be going out on a limb here, I'm pretty sure that the wrongness of rape is not simply a quantitative increase in the same sort of thing that occurs when one places a fork to the right of a plate.
Remeber ngrams?
It seems like every question of substance has come down to the question of reality. Whats real, whats not, and how does it work.
In an attempt to simplify the conversation and avoid unnecessary metaphors I would have to say "ethics" whats right and wrong, are real things. We use these words to describe negative and positive effects, these effects and the transfer of them in different states can be measured, partially.
I argue that if "ethics is dumb" then so are good and bad therefore also, negative and positive in all states. Negative and positive states are not dumb atomically so why would they be dumb ethically?
I could try and explain further...Fuck it, you get the idea.
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