Why not Fallibilism? (Part 3 of “Can one be moral without the negative parts?”)
My metaethical position is that we would be better off (that is, the world would be more to the liking of most of us) if we ceased believing in morality and ceased acting as if we did believe in it (provided we also cultivated reason and compassion). The kingpin of this “abolitionist” thesis is that morality is understood to be something categorical and objective, that is, moral beliefs about what is right and wrong and good and bad and deserved and blameworthy and so forth are true or false in the same way as factual beliefs about trees and squirrels and planets and atoms and so on. In other words, moral beliefs do not depend for their truth on whether you are happy about their being true. You ought not to torture babies, and physical objects on Earth (and ignoring air resistance etc.) fall at a rate of 32 feet per second per second are both true even if you enjoy torturing babies or you really did not want to be thrown out of the 10th story window. The argument for moral abolitionism is then that morality does not exist in reality and believing that it does has worse effects overall than not believing that it does (with the two provisos).
But this understanding of morality leaves my thesis open to two main objections. One is that morality does not have the features that make me skeptical of its existence; for example, maybe our seeming assertions of an action’s being (categorically and objectively) right or wrong in the moral realm are in fact only expressions of subjective feelings of liking or disliking. The other objection is that even if morality is categorical and objective, believing in its existence is better than not believing in it (even with the two provisos).
Note that both objections are empirical in nature. Thus, resolving the first question relies on an accounting of how moral terminology is actually used: Are people reporting their beliefs or only their desires?[1] Resolving the second question relies on an accounting of the relative net effects of believing and of not believing (with the two provisos) in a categorical and objective morality. I doubt that either question could ever be resolved definitively, but each of us will be more or less persuaded by the evidence and arguments that are adduced on one side or the other.[2]
In “Why not Moral Relativism?” I considered the possibility that we typically finesse the issues by holding an incoherent attitude of subjective categoricity; that is, at one and the same time we might hold that, for example, abortion is absolutely wrong, while also recognizing that someone else might hold with equal legitimacy that abortion is always or sometimes permissible. While this makes no sense, I don’t see that it is psychologically impossible. Indeed, I rather think it’s closer to the norm for us to hold conflicting beliefs.[3] We might then speak of relative right and wrong, and even relative truth, as in “It’s true for me.” This means that to assert that you believe x is not to assert that you believe x is true in the sense that everyone else ought to believe x too, but only in the sense that you believe x is true (where “is true” now means only that x would be the case even if you did not believe it).
But there is a less extreme response to the abolitionist challenge – in fact, one that is a commonplace – namely, fallibilism. This is simply the position that one can be mistaken. Thus, even holding that morality is categorical and objective, the problems that can arise from believing that such a thing actually exists can be ameliorated by the acknowledgment that one’s moral beliefs could be mistaken. And is this not exactly how we strive to ameliorate the similarly possible baneful effects of any beliefs? Even a nonmoral belief can wreak havoc if held too rigidly. Therefore a general epistemic modesty is recommended.
Indeed, the very pinnacle of objective truth – the science of physics – now positively embraces the possibility of its own beliefs being false. No scientist worthy of the name will insist that they are in possession of irrefutable truth … however much they may themselves believe their own theory, or however much evidence has been adduced in its favor. The history of the field supports this attitude: Aristotle turned out to be wrong, Newton turned out to be wrong, and the status of various of Einstein’s views (for example, about determinism and about the cosmological constant) remains in question. And I myself admitted above that the empirical questions that need answering in order to decide on my preferred theory of ethics will likely never be definitively answered.
Nevertheless, I don’t think fallibilism will save the day for morality. This is because I just don’t believe that even the promoters of fallibilism are really fallibilist about some of their own moral beliefs, or ever could be. To play the Hitler card: Is the typical fallibilist really prepared to admit they could be mistaken about the wrongness (not to mention awfulness) of the Holocaust? I don’t think so! Nor of the wrongness of torturing babies, and on and on.
But is the moral abolitionist in any better position? I think so. For the denial of the very existence of morality does not condone any of the outrages and atrocities a moralist would condemn (not to mention that Moralist A might not condemn, and might even praise, what Moralist B condemns). Condoning is itself a moralist attitude. In lieu of condemning and condoning, the kind of amoralist I have been championing (whom I call a desirist) likes and dislikes various things (perhaps with intensity, and even unshakably*), and on this basis, leavened by reasoning and compassion, acts.
Yes, there will still be disagreements … but no more than between Moralist A and Moralist B. And whereas the moralists’ disagreement presumes the whole moral infrastructure of wrongness (as a property of some act) and badness (as a property of some motive or of a person’s character and very worth) and desert (as something due to the bad actor) and freedom and choice (as essential capacities of the actor, in light of which they can be judged as a good or a bad actor) and so forth, the amoralists’ disagreement presumes only that the parties to the disagreement have opposing attitudes (“desires” for short). Thus an entire layer of potential disagreements (for example, “What you did was wrong!” “No it wasn’t!”) has been eliminated, having been seen through as a superfluous and even fictitious add-on. There will then be no defensiveness propping up one’s desire, but only the desire.[4] Therefore guilt will be eliminated and stagnation and strife reduced; and that is what makes moral abolitionism attractive in my eyes.
* Note on an analetheist (i.e., against truth) implication of the rejection of fallibilism:
My saying that a desirist might like or dislike something “unshakably” touches upon (what I take to be) a fascinating aspect of amoralism. Consider: What is the difference between "I am certain (that x)" and "It (x) is true"? Is there a difference? To me there is a clear difference: "I am certain" is an assertion about oneself and one's phenomenology, whereas "It is true" is an assertion about the world or reality (beyond one's own psychological state). And I see this distinction as having huge practical implications, since the latter manifests a massive arrogance whereas the former expresses a profound humility. In other words, a universal subjectivity expresses deep humility (as knowing nothing) whereas any objectivity presumes a highly privileged position for oneself (as a knower of truth).
Seemingly ironically, therefore,
what I am trying to do is "make the world safe for" certainty
... by removing the arrogance (and hence resulting intransigence and
conflict) that infuses it when its expression (including its “expression” as
our felt conviction) is put in objectivist terms. Thus, I want to be
able to say that I, with absolute certainty and no possibility of change of
mind (if I’m in possession of my rational faculties), hold or believe that
in no way do the Jews (or anybody else) deserve to be exterminated, without
the proviso that I might be mistaken about that but I highly doubt it,
which could only be lip service or "theoretical" and an empty
foundation for fallibilism. And this is made possible by removing the
involvement of truth, or any assertion thereof, or any belief in it
or that some proposition has that property, etc. So I am not declaring
(asserting) that in no way does anybody deserve to be
exterminated, nor that it is true that no people deserves to
be exterminated. I am simply talking about my own psychology. That is an
extreme humility that fallibilism cannot approach with honesty. And yet
I can (and indeed will, other things equal) express, feel, and act on my
own sense of certainty. Win-win.
[1]
Note that the belief can itself be caused by desire. This is how I account for
the “coincidence” that people rarely judge their own actions to be wrong. As a
rule we think is right what we want to be the case. The tail wags the dog: We
like something not because we think it’s right, but the other way around.
[2] I myself am uncertain in both cases, but know at
least from my personal experience that morality can be conceived
as categorical and objective, and that believing that such a morality
actually exists can be baneful.
[3]
And while I do as a rule encourage the elimination of contradictions from our
thinking, this being an aspect of rationality, I – in an instance of my own
capacity for sustaining conflicting beliefs – am pretty sure that a program of
total rationalism would be catastrophic for our psyches and society.
[4] Note that one’s belief that one has a certain preference, or has it with unshakeable conviction, may be mistaken, just like any other belief. In this sense I am a fallibilist. My point is only that it is possible to have an unshakeable preference (assuming ordinary conditions; all bets are off if one’s brain is being manipulated by an evil scientist, etc.). Note too that there may be a (meta-)desire that one’s desires be fulfilled. But this would not differentiate the amoralist from the moralist.