An Argument with No Legs to Stand On

Moral realism is the view that there is moral truth. The typical moral realist, however, actually believes two things: that there is moral truth, and that he or she is in possession of it. Here’s an example.

 

A Scientific American blog post (“CRISPR-Edited Mouse Genes Help Us Understand How Snakes Lost Their Legs” by Ryan F. Mandelbaum, October 27, 2016) describes an experiment on mice, whose overt purpose was to understand how snakes became limbless. This seems to be an exercise in pure science, an effort simply to know or understand something, in this case, biological evolution; but the experiment was also useful as a demonstration of the power of the new gene-editing technique known as CRISPR.

 

            The blog post touches on the question of whether there is anything ethically problematic about producing limbless mice in furtherance of these goals. A couple of bioethicists are quoted. I will not name names, since the particular quote that concerns me contains the only utterance that appears in the post by one of the bioethicists, so it would be unfair to draw conclusions about her full meaning or attitude. However, the use of the quote by the author of the post conveys an impression about the bioethicist and the nature of her field, and it is that impression I want to examine.

 

            The quote is this:

 

Although deliberately producing limbless mice might sound macabre, the work is ethically justifiable in this case, says [Bioethicist X], who was not involved in the study. “Refining a technique and using a new technology is an important contribution to science and publicly valuable,” she says.

 

            The impression conveyed by this quote is, I think, that experimenting on nonhuman animals can be justified by the nature of a scientific goal. Keep in mind that “experimenting on” also involves rearing and then housing these animals in very restricted ways, and finally, killing them. The entire life of one of these animals consists of having stunted development, being confined in a cage, probably without companionship, being handled and probed in uncomfortable or even painful ways, and, at the end, guillotined or gassed.

 

            How could such treatment be justified? The underlying moral theory must be utilitarianism, according to which the greater good justifies whatever actions lead to it. Thus, Bioethicist X presumes, developing CRISPR technology, even in the pursuit of pure knowledge having no immediate medical application, promises more good in the long run, with its potential for curing or preventing diseases and disabilities and so forth, than causing pain, distress, stunted prospects, and premature death for a number of mice.

 

It is possible to question this factual assessment. But that’s not my main gripe. For suppose it is even true that CRISPR has this potential, and that the mouse/snake experiment is a significant demonstration of it: It still would not follow that the experiment is justified. Why not? Well, for one thing, is it not even more likely to be true that performing similar experiments on human beings would advance CRISPR technology, and medical science, and long-term human welfare, and indeed, even more, much much more? Yet we (if we are not Nazis) would not countenance such experiments for a moment.

 

So it is patent that no one (other than Nazis), not even Bioethicist X, really subscribes to utilitarianism. So her invoking of it, even implicitly, could only be a kind of rhetorical move. It is not to be taken at face value as an objective justification of anything. That is my first objection to the impression conveyed by the quotation in the article.

 

Furthermore, two can play this game. I too am a bioethicist, but when I was still a moralist, I relied on a different moral theory from Bioethicist X, namely, deontology. As I developed that theory, it implied that treating any sentient being as a mere means was wrong. It made no difference whether doing so was for the promotion of some “greater good.” The act was inherently wrong. And this is precisely why, for instance, we (non-Nazis) refuse to perform such grisly experiments on human beings, because even though doing so would arguably bring about more good in the long run than not doing so, it is simply inherently wrong to use people strictly as means to an end, no matter how desirable that end. And just so, other animals. In other words, no animal whatever, human or otherwise, should have such things done to them.

 

So who is to decide between Bioethicist X’s (favored) theory and mine? She and I could debate this forever, as have ethicists for centuries. So my second objection to the quotation is that it conveys the impression that Bioethicist X is basing her views on some consensus fact of ethics, as if utilitarianism (the theory of utility) warranted as much confidence as, say, the theory of relativity, or the theory of natural selection. But there are no such facts in ethics.

 

            This leads me to my main objection: Morality is simply a myth. The reason utilitarians and deontologists have been and will forever continue to be debating the question of what makes something morally right (obligatory or at least permissible) or wrong (impermissible) or good or bad etc. is that such notions have as little purchase on reality as do their ancient counterparts, namely, Zeus’s pleasure or displeasure. Thus, nobody today believes that what makes an action or policy etc. wrong (or right etc.) is that Zeus doesn’t ( or does) like it, yet most of us continue to believe that something must account for the wrongness (or rightness etc.) of actions, policies, etc. Moral theory attempts to fill this breach.

 

            Here it is useful to introduce a distinction. Moral theory is ambiguous between so-called normative ethics and meta-ethics. The dispute between the utilitarians and the deontologists is a normative one: Which theory best accounts for the objective moral value of actions, etc.? But meta-ethics inquires into the very nature of morality, including whether it is something objective at all. I have come to the conclusion that morality is not objective.

 

            And then I have gone a step further. It seems to me that most people’s implicit meta-ethical view is that morality is objective. This (presumed fact) has led me to recommend that we give up thinking and speaking in moralist terms at all. In other words, I think it makes more sense just to say that morality does not exist, rather than that morality is subjective. Why? Well, for one thing, given the shared prejudice that morality is objective, I doubt that most of us would be able to wield a subjective morality without sneaking in objectivism. For example, when somebody says (or thinks), “That’s wrong!” I find it hard to believe that they, or whomever they are addressing, could easily understand themselves to be meaning only that they don’t like it.

 

            And why does this matter? Well, I don’t believe in objective “mattering” either. But the confusion about the nature of morality matters to me because of the damage it causes to things I care about. This brings me back to the mouse/snake experiment. I have a visceral aversion to animals being treated in the way those mice are treated. I also have a strong commitment to honesty. Thus, now that I have taken my amoral turn, I am no longer going to attempt to dissuade people from experimenting on mice by asserting or trying to convince them that it is morally wrong to do so. However, by the same token, I will not countenance someone else asserting or trying to convince people that it is morally obligatory or at least permissible  (“justified”) to do so.

 

            Hence when I come across (what appears to be) a bioethicist pulling rank with her authority as a specialist in morality based on her knowledge of the relevant “facts” about what makes something objectively right or wrong, I will be prompted to pull the rug out from under her by means of an essay such as this one.