[2.8.3.] Rachels’ Criticism of the LCDA.

 

Rachels offers the following criticism of the LCDA (so far as I can tell, this criticism is accurate… the argument really does fail for the reason that Rachels describes):

 

The premises of the LCDA are both true. Each premise merely makes a factual psychological claim about what is believed by a specific group of people. The fact that these premises are about what people believe does not make them subjective:

·         it is an objective fact about me that I believe Atlanta is the capitol of Georgia; and

·         it is an objective fact about most Americans that they believe that infanticide is immoral.

 

But the LCDA is invalid, i.e., the truth of the premises would not guarantee the truth of the conclusion.

 

The important thing is to understand why the truth of the premises would not guarantee the truth of the conclusion. The reason is this: In general, the fact that different groups of people have contradictory beliefs about x does not imply that there are no objective truths about x. It is possible for two groups to have conflicting beliefs about a subject, and for one of those groups to be right and the other to be wrong (or for both groups to be wrong).

 

The “shape of the earth” argument described by Rachels (argument 5, at RTD p.23) has the same flaw. It is invalid for the same reason as the LCDA.

 

An important logical point: the fact that the LCDA is unsound does not imply that its conclusion is false. It just means that the argument is itself not a good argument for that conclusion. It may still be true that infanticide is neither objectively right nor objectively wrong.

 

However, since the LCDA is an invalid argument, those who believe that infanticide is neither objectively right nor objectively wrong need a better argument to support that claim.

 

In general, the fact that an argument is invalid does not mean that it has a false conclusion. It is easy to come up with unsound arguments for true conclusions, for example

 

Some circus clowns are under 6 feet tall. (true)

Lane is a philosopher. (true)

So, Lane is under 6 feet tall. (true)

 

 

[2.8.4.] Moral Skepticism and Moral Realism.

 

The conclusion of the LCDA expresses moral skepticism about infanticide. This argument is supposed to show that there is no truth of the matter about the morality of killing infants, that there is no objective right or wrong when it comes to infanticide. The only relevant truths are truths about what people in different societies believe.

 

moral skepticism (df.): the view that there is no such thing as objective moral truth, i.e., no moral judgments that are true (or false) independent of what people think, feel or believe about them. One may be a moral skeptic about all morality (call this “full blown” moral skepticism) or just about specific issues (such as infanticide).

 

Moral skepticism is the opposite of:

 

moral realism (df.): the view that there is such a thing as objective moral truth, i.e., moral judgments that are true (and others that are false) independent of what people think, feel or believe about them.

 

The LCDA concludes that: there is no objective truth as to whether infanticide is right or wrong; all there is with regard to infanticide is opinion. In other words, the LCDA is an argument in support of moral skepticism about infanticide and against moral realism about infanticide.

 

 

[2.9.] The Provability Argument.

 

The next argument Rachels considers is an argument in support of full-blown moral skepticism. In other words, it is an argument in support of moral skepticism about everything, not just about a single issue (like infanticide, abortion, capital punishment, etc.). If full-blown moral skepticism is true, then no action whatsoever is objectively immoral... not even rape, torture, or killing innocent people for fun.

 

This argument is at RTD p.25:

 

1.      If there were any such thing as objective truth in ethics, we should be able to prove that some moral opinions are true and others false.

2.      But in fact we cannot prove which moral opinions are true and which are false.

3.      Therefore, there is no such thing as objective truth in ethics.

 

 

[2.9.1.] Valid or Invalid?

 

The Provability Argument is valid. It has the following argument form:

 

If p, then q.

Not-q.

Therefore, not-p.

 

And any argument that has this form is valid. It does not matter what propositions you fill in for “p” and “q”; so long as both “p”s are replaced with the same proposition and both “q”s are replaced with the same proposition, the resulting argument will be valid. For example,

 

If Atlanta is the capital of Georgia, then the moon is made of cheese.

The moon is not made of cheese.

Therefore, Atlanta is not the capital of Georgia.

 

This is a valid argument, even though one of its premises is false.

 

This argument form has a name: modus tollens. We will return to this argument form, and consider other argument forms that are similar to it, in a few days.

 

 

[2.9.2.] Rachels’ Criticism of the Provability Argument.

 

According to Rachels, the Provability Argument is unsound because the second premise is false.

 

He argues that we can prove moral claims to be true, and he gives a number of examples of moral opinions that he thinks we CAN prove to be true:

·         that a test was unfair

·         that “Jones is a bad man”

·         that “Dr. Smith is irresponsible”

·         that “A certain used-car salesman is unethical.”

 

But even if Rachels is right, this does not mean that the conclusion of the Provability Argument (full-blown moral skepticism) is false. As we saw previously, the fact that an argument is unsound does not imply that its conclusion is false. It might be an unsound argument for a true conclusion.

 

So the defender of full-blown moral skepticism needs to give a better argument if he or she is to convince us that that theory is true.

 

 

Stopping point for Monday August 24. For next time (Wednesday August 26):

·         study the lecture notes from today;

·         read EMP ch.2, pp.16-19;

·         you may have a pop quiz on both at the beginning of class.