If Morals are "Just" Expressions of Attitude...

Ethics can be depressing. After countless books about the nature of moral thought, I finally felt like I had found an explanation of ethics in Blackburn’s quasi-realism. But with an answer in hand, the prospect of living morally seemed uninteresting. "Is this all it is to be moral? Why should I care?" It is one thing to describe morality, and another to really feel motivated by it. In particular, I had two specific dilemmas regarding the motivation behind a moral life. I think a discussion of these issues is valuable, for it highlights some easy mistakes to make in understanding the theory of quasi-realism. Hopefully, my solution to these questions may prove useful to others.

Before discussing my dilemmas further, an important distinction must be made. Philosophers divide ethics into two areas. Normative ethics is the study of the right thing to do. It is what most people do when they think about ethical matters. One good example of a normative ethical debate is the discussion that happens in the U.S. Congress. Some people believe one budget is better than another, or that the nation is obligated to help another country with money or military support, or that we must do more to help the needy. In a normative ethical discussion, each side has a different idea about what the right choice is in a decision. The other side of ethics is metaethics. Meta- is a prefix that is often used in philosophy to mean "one step up" or "the study of." Metaethics, then, is the study of what precisely is going on when we do normative ethics. Some examples of metaethical questions are: "What differences are there between statements about morals and statements about other facts?" "Is everybody subject to the same moral rules, or do the rules change from culture to culture?" "Where do moral facts come from?" Metaethics is "one step up" from normative ethics, looking down at it and trying to figure out exactly what is happening when we think about morals. Most people do not think about metaethics as much as they do about normative ethics. We cannot avoid being normative ethicists, because we have to make moral decisions every day. Blackburn’s quasi-realism, however, is a metaethical theory. He does not tell us anything in particular that we should do, but rather he describes what is going on when we think ethically.

Opinions differ on the relationship between metaethics and normative ethics. If a new idea is described in metaethics, does this change the way we do normative ethics? Some say normative ethics goes on just the same no matter how a metaethicist might try to describe it. I disagree, and believe that my metaethical point of view has affected the way I make moral choices in some ways. However, for some time I took this notion too far. To a large degree, normative ethics can go on without too much interference from my metaethical philosophy. I would like to discuss exactly what my misunderstanding was, for I believe it is a common mistake to make.

My problem was that I took quasi-realism to mean that weighty moral matters were not all that important. There are certain activities which, while requiring a large degree of effort, we usually consider to be morally very good: working for social justice, helping the needy, protecting the environment, etc. When I first learned about quasi-realism, my reaction was this: if morals are just expressions of my attitudes, then they are not really that important. Why should I sacrifice a lot to do something if my feeling of obligation is all in my head? I can simply decide not to do these moral activities, and I will not suffer any consequences. It would be a different matter, however, if morals described real properties of the world. Then I would be bound to do these good deeds.

This view, I suspect, is a common reaction of people who begin to study metaethics. All our ethical reasoning seems to be founded on a very weak basis. It is hard to stay a firm believer in ethical principles once we realize what is going on in a normative ethical discussion. I now believe, however, that the view in the above paragraph is mistaken. While ethics may be all in our heads, there is no reason to think less of it. We should continue to be the same moral individuals we were before learning of quasi-realism.

My reasoning takes the form of a paradox. First, I will describe the paradox, and then we will try to understand what is going on. If we believe quasi-realism, then we accept that morals are expressions of our motivations. The lazy moralist makes a claim: "A moral claim based only on the motivations of one person is worthless." However, this claim is a moral one, since it is suggesting what we should or should not do. If the claim is a moral one, however, then it is an expression of the attitude of the lazy moralist, who just told us that such moral statements were worthless. He has sawed off the tree branch he was sitting on. The lazy moralist in effect says, "Do not believe what I say." His claim cannot hold, because it contradicts itself.

The argument from paradox is rather abstract, so let us try to understand exactly what it means. I think the reason I fell into the trap was that quasi-realism let me down in a way. I was used to thinking about moral rules that were just true, that were as real as the world I see around me. Quasi-realism says that ethics is not this way. It seems like a step down to say that ethics are "only" expressions of attitudes. Moral rules seem less binding, since they do not seem as strong as we expect. However, Blackburn has shown how normative ethics to the quasi-realist behaves just the same as to the realist. There is nothing "really" lost in saying ethics is "only" attitudes; it is not a true step down.

The truth is that we are decision-making creatures, and morals are a part of the decision-making apparatus that we use all the time. The lazy moralist thinks he can get outside the system, that he does not have to be moral if he doesn’t want to. He is only deluding himself. When he decides "not to be good," he is making a choice. He is still inside the system. A person can decide that the welfare of others is not important, but not to stop making decisions. It is not a trivial task to convince oneself that the effort of helping others is worthwhile. However, this is a point to be settled by normative ethics, not metaethics. The normative discussion looks the same to the realist and quasi-realist.

I also felt a second type of worry as I learned more about metaethics. If the process of doing ethics is checking all my rules of thumb against each other, is it wrong to decide that a coherent belief system is not important? The discussion earlier in this essay has shown that ethical truths motivate me to act correctly, but not that I should worry if I do not know ethical truth. It takes effort to make one’s life more moral, so perhaps I can just decide that being as moral as possible is not one of my values. Rather, I will just keep doing what I am doing now, and never waste time worrying about tough moral questions. If I happen to act according to one rule sometimes, but according to that rule’s opposite at other times, what are the consequences? There is only a logical inconsistency in my behavior. Perhaps a psychologist would be perplexed, but nothing really bad happens to me. This course of action seems much easier than being a strictly moral person.

The issue this argument raises is quite confusing. We will find, in fact, that this argument is valid to a degree. However, a person who argues this way makes the same mistake that we discussed in the first half of the essay: we cannot escape normative ethics.

The argument that consistency is not important seems to be about metaethics. It offers some description of the process of normative ethics. However, in making a value judgement about normative ethics, it becomes normative itself. One way to understand this idea is to rephrase the argument as follows: it is permissible to hold inconsistent moral beliefs. Any statement that discusses permissibility is a normative ethical judgement. We have not escaped into pure metaethics, as we may have thought at first. Of course the fact that the statement is normative does not yet tell us anything about whether it is true or not. I rather mention this fact so we know how to test if it is true.

What is the reasoning of our lazy moralist in this case? The issue is one of time and priorities. "I have better things to do with my time than to worry about morality," he says. "If I spend all my time deciding if I am doing the right thing or not, I will have less time to actually act." If we want to test the truth of the lazy moralist’s claim, we will have to question this argument as we would do for any moral argument.

In fact, I believe there is some truth to the argument. Most of the time, the rules of thumb we use to make decisions are relative consistent. Humanity has had thousands of years to accumulate wisdom, good rules of thumb for behavior. In general, we can go through our daily lives trusting that our parents and society raised us to have reasonable moral guidelines.

Being a moral person does not mean, however, that one must drop everything else and worry only about ironing out moral discrepancies. I think it is silly to not care at all if one’s beliefs are consistent, because to do so is to ignore one’s interests. When I realize a moral truth that I did not previously recognize, I come to an understanding of how to better get what I want. An example might be helpful here. Suppose that, although I usually observe the rule that theft is bad, I still regularly steal candies from the bulk displays at grocery stores. I know that this behavior is bad, but at the time I see only my short-term interests of getting tasty food for free. Suppose one day, however, I come to understand what it means for my action to be wrong. My life is incomparably better in a society in which people trust each other to respect property rights. While the odds of anything bad happening to me for stealing a single piece of candy are slim, as a general practice my behavior tends to have bad consequences. In general, I should work for a society in which nobody steals, for then I will be more secure in my own life. All I lose is the occasional tootsie roll, which is not really very fulfilling. There is a real benefit to me in being moral. Our parents do not usually explain precisely why stealing is wrong, because the reasoning is too complicated for a child. But good reasoning exists behind every such maxim. So in learning a moral truth, I learn how to more effectively get what I really want, while sacrificing only my lesser wants. I have only to gain my thinking about morality.