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"We assess moral progress by appeal to welfare, well-being, universality, and social stability. Genocide is hard to reconcile with these goals. I grant that a wicked society might not be concerned with any of these extramoral values, but we are certainly concerned about these things, and, therefore, we would not regard the adoption of a genocidal value system to be progressive, even if it scored high on the standard of consistency." (p.299)
"My invocations of universality, welfare, and well-being are not intended as categorical norms. I have not provided an argument for the claim that these are absolute standards that anyone must accept. I am first and foremost making a descriptive claim, subject to empirical test, that these are standards by which we would judge one set of values to be better than another. In so doing, I am demonstrating that moral progress is intelligible within a relativist framework. Were I to make any normative claim about these standards—were I
to recommend them—it would be an expression of the fact that I accept these standards, and of the hope that you accept them too. Unlike classic normative theories, I think the normative claims must always be made from within a value system. We cannot find a transcendental litmus test for morality.
Another difference between the account of moral progress that I am advancing and prevailing theories in normative ethics is that I think the standards by which moral progress is judged are not themselves moral standards. It is important for progress that we can step outside morality. Otherwise, our current values would always dictate our moral preferences, and progress would be impossible.
Therefore when I say, for example, that we prefer moral theories that lead to greater well-being, I am not making a moral claim. Well-being is neither necessary nor sufficient for moral goodness. Someone who does something that results in great happiness has not necessarily done a morally good thing, and someone can do the morally good thing (i.e., do something that we regard with moral approbation) even though it does not bring about happiness. Likewise for the ‘‘goods’’ put forward in classical normative theories. I am claiming that these are extramoral goods. They reside outside of morality, though they can be used to improve morality.
In addition, I would reject the claim that any of the goods put forward by classical normative theories is foundational. None is the source from which all other goods flow. More generally, I don’t think any of the standards of assessment that I have been discussing is more fundamental than the others. Nor do I think that these standards of assessment are more fundamental than the moral rules that they assess. Moral rules are not derived from these standards. It assessing moral theories, as in doing science, we must be holistic. We must keep all of our values in view, we must know where they stand in relation to our web of moral convictions, and we must bear in mind the extramoral principles that matter to us as well. Some moral principles are more basic than others, insofar as some are general principles and others are applications. But, when it comes to the revision of the general principles (our grounding norms), all of our convictions, moral and non-moral, are potentially relevant. And, just as extramoral principles might be used to revise morality, moral principles might weigh in as we revise our extramoral values.
This holism goes hand in hand with pluralism. All too often moral philosophers seek to reduce morality to a single principle. Doing that would be a breathtaking achievement. The great normative theories are stunningly elegant and ambitious. Indeed, they are ambitious to a fault. Human morality is multifaceted. We have a range of different rules that cannot be unified under any single principle. Most philosophers focus on rules having to do with harms, justice, or rights.
These are all different constructs, and they are only a fraction of the moral pie. They all belong to the ethics of autonomy, in Shweder et al.’s (1997) phrase, leaving out the domains of community and divinity/nature. Shweder believes that autonomy norms have taken on special prominence in Western individualist cultures. Collectivist cultures, such as those in the Far East, may place comparatively more emphasis on community norms, including those that have to do with rank. Non-secular societies emphasize community too, and also place emphasis on rules pertaining to religious and sexual purity. Rules pertaining to rank and sex are less salient to us, but they certainly exist. They cannot be captured under the rubric of autonomy without considerable contrivance. Some philosophers would have us believe that rules of rank and sex are not bona fide moral rules because they cannot be justified by appeal to prohibitions against harm or other principles of autonomy. But this attitude is a form of moral myopia, brought on by Western individualism and socialization in professional philosophy. Moral domains outside autonomy have fallen off the cultural radar even though they exercise considerable influence on our daily lives. We live in a world of class, authority, and norms of respect. We form our most intimate relationships on the basis of kinship rules and norms of sexual propriety. The morality of daily life may have more to do with these things than with harms, rights, and justice." " (pp.303-305)
"Moral sentiments serve a number of important functions. For one thing, moral sentiments play a key role in motivation. When we judge that something is good, we are motivated to act because we are disposed to feel certain motivating emotions. Of special import are the punitive emotions. The threat of guilt and shame help us resist temptations. Anger, contempt, and disgust help regulate the behavior of others. Without morality, rules of conduct might become dispassionate, and dispassionate rules are easy to ignore. Consider the rule against jaywalking. We all know that this rule exists and it comes to mind every time we walk against the light, but, for many of us, it has no motivational impact. Rules that are not sentimentally grounded are not especially effective in guiding conduct.
Second, the transmission of rules is greatly facilitated by moral sentiments. We can get our children to conform to operative norms by conditioning their emotions. Rules based on anything other than sentiments are harder to pass on. Emotions command attention and facilitate memory. They serve as punishments and rewards. If we simply gave our children books of rules, I suspect that they would have a hard time learning what morality requires of them, and an even harder time learning to conform.
A third closely related point is that moral sentiments can be used to internalize rules. By training our sentiments, conduct that would not otherwise appeal to us begins to seem natural and automatic. Morality becomes a central part of our self-conceptions. We identify with moral rules, and we like to affiliate with people whose values are similar to our own. Dispassionate beliefs tend not to be internalized in this way. We can lose beliefs without losing our sense of self.
Fourth, moral sentiments allow us to extend morality. Through sentimental education, the welfare of other people becomes a matter of personal concern. The idea of moral extension relates to Hume’s conception of artificial virtues (Hume, 1739: III.ii). According to Hume, we are naturally disposed to be benevolent, but our natural benevolence is constrained by self-love, and reserved for those who are close to us, similar to us, or who have qualities that we happen to value. We are not naturally benevolent to strangers and, thus, have no natural bias against stealing their property when it suits us. On reflection, however, this would be a bad idea. If we did not respect the property rights of others, they wouldn’t respect ours. Thus, we would ultimately lose out in a society that tolerated theft. We benefit from rules protecting property ownership (what Hume call’s ‘‘justice’’) along with other rules, such as promise-keeping, that are unnatural. Self-love drives us to create such artificial rules. We cultivate moral sentiments toward justice, because we know that it is in our interest to do so. Hume does not fully explain how these sentiments are cultivated in the first place, but he suggests that parents can teach children to love justice, to condemn promise-breakers, and so on. Had Hume been more cynical, he might have realized that some artificial virtues do not originate in the recognition that certain unnatural rules are beneficial. Some may emerge, as Nietzsche suggested, through power struggles and historical happenstance. But the core idea in Hume’s account of artificial virtues seems right. Many of our rules involve the application of sentiments to things that would not naturally elicit approbation or disapprobation. Sentiments are valuable because they can be extended to new cases.
For these reasons, I think it would be disastrous to abandon the moral sentiments that constitute morality. If we could replace our passionate rules with cool principles, there would be hideous consequences. Suppo se we could take pills that eliminate anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, and shame. We might initially be relieved to be rid of these unpleasant emotions. But, in so doing, we would lose our motivation to avoid antisocial behavior, we would undermine our capacity to transmit rules easily, we would eliminate our self-conceptions as moral agents, and we would risk becoming indifferent to the needs of distant others. Moral sentiments are like a vaccine that protects us from virulent psychopathy.
It is time to take stock. I have been defending constructivist sentimentalism, which is a form of sensibility theory according to which moral facts are products or our moral rules, moral rules are constituted by sentiments, and sentiments are established through biocultural interactions. Because morality is a construction, it is possible for us to take the reins. We can exert some control in determining the course of moral change. Once we recognize that morality exists to serve our wants and needs, we can try to adjust current morals so that they serve us better.
We cannot do this from a transcendental position. We have to use our current values to guide us. But moral values cannot be used to guide moral change, because moral values are self-affirming; we always think our current convictions are noble. To make moral progress, we need to consult our extramoral values. Extramoral values cannot illuminate the path to a single true morality, but they can help us see how our current values fail to achieve ends that matter to us greatly." (pp.306-308)
-Jesse Prinz, The Emotional Construction of Morals, New York, y Oxford University Press, 2007 334 pages.
