Subjective Ethics

Thousands of years ago, the philosopher Protagoras said, "Man is the measure of all things." He meant there's nothing to determine what is wrong or right, beyond the reasoning of man. Many have debated this thought, perhaps most famously Plato in his, "Theaetetus". Today, we're still not so sure.

There are two types of knowledge Protagoras could be talking about. The first is knowledge about the physical world. The second is ethical knowledge about what is right and wrong. Skepticism doubts we can truly know anything, physical or ethical. Relativism believes there is no objective ethical knowledge, essentially agreeing with Protagoras.

It's clear ethics is not a science. There is no ethical gene nor atom that a scientist can put under the microscope. This means that any truth acquired by ethics cannot be an objective truth. It can only be a subjective one. We have come to think of subjectivity as a negative trait. However, it does not have to be.

It doesn't have to be negative because the usefulness of ethics does not come from the objectivity of the viewpoint that some specific ethic provides. To place the benefit or importance of an ethic on its objectivity would be to place its importance on the cause or creator of the ethic. But we do not care about ethics for its cause, we care about it for its effect. We care about ethics because we want life to be a certain way. We might want life to be a certain way for ourselves or for someone else.

Some of us place great importance on the causes of their ethic, but they don't place the sole importance on the cause of their ethic. Take a Christian, for example. They believe their ethic is the right one because they believe it was invented by God. They believe that God knows what is best and designed both the world and the beings in it to live according to that ethic. That second point is that key to understanding why the cause of the ethic is unimportant. They believe in their ethic because they believe God created it. But they also believe their ethic is the right way to live. They believe that it yields the best long-term results. Yes, some believe they must follow it to be rewarded with eternity in Heaven (avoiding eternal damnation in Hell). Still, most believe it is actually the best way to live. If we were to strip away the God backing the ethic, many would continue to believe and, more importantly, practice it. Which brings up an interesting counterpoint: that some would dump their ethic if there was no God backing it. Or, to put it more plainly, some disagree with their ethic but only follow it out of fear of punishment.

This could be true outside of religion too. Someone living in a totalitarian state may well follow rules, some of which may fall well into the ethical territory, even when they disagree with them. Even in a free society, some may follow ethical principles that they disagree with, only out of fear of punishment. Take tax evasion for example. There are countless members of our society that disagree with taxes on an ethical level. Some believe its stealing while others believe it supports harmful practices, such as the military-industrial complex or the welfare state. Yet, they still pay their taxes out of fear of punishment. You wouldn't find them voluntarily donating their money to kill foreigners or allow others to receive income while not working, things that go against their ethical code. However, they do it through their taxes, because they will be punished if they do not.

Now, if these punishments suddenly went away and our hypothetical ethicist suddenly changed their practices, would we say they changed their ethic? We would certainly say they changed their practices, but perhaps their beliefs haven't changed a bit. In fact, their beliefs and actions may finally be aligning. To use consistent terms: they still cared about the results of their ethic (avoiding punishment) rather than the cause. You could even hypothesize their ethic is one primarily of avoiding punishment or pain, if that was enough to change the rest of their actions. A religious person may have rationalized their ethic, saying it was objectively correct, because it was designed by a perfect God. Yet it was not the objectivity that mattered in the end, it was the fear of punishment that guided their choice.

This addresses those that change their beliefs once the perfect source is removed. But what about the other half, the half that continues in their beliefs, morals, actions, or ethic even once the perfect source is removed? These provide an even more damning argument. They continue the course because they approve of the results of the ethic. Here we no longer refer to long-term, eternity-term results, as they expect from the reward of Heaven. Here we refer to short-term results. They believe that their ethic produces the results they desire, right here in this life. Showing, once again, that it had nothing to do with the source of their ethic, but with the results.

Here I've attempted to convince you that, after removing the "perfect" or "objective" source of an ethic, there are reasons to believe that a person did not care about the source of their ethic, but about the results.

However, I've also produced a conundrum. A hypothesis that cannot be disproved is a bad one. And, if no matter what someone does after their perfect ethical source is removed, my hypothesis is proved, then how could it ever be disproved? Perhaps we need another scenario to understand if a perfect source is the reason for an ethic.

We would know the source is the reason for an ethic if we could determine that, no matter the results, someone follows it. This is difficult with religion because it follows a typical pattern: ethical or moral norms are given and expectations to follow them are paired with punishments for failure and rewards for success. This makes our task difficult. How could we ever know if someone cared about the reward and punishment, or the perfect source? I think they would say they cared about the source. But, as we just saw, there may be reasons to believe they do not.

What we need is an ethic that supposedly originates from a perfect source, but is not paired with reward or punishment. Perhaps the results could be perfectly neutral. However, what would be the point? Any ethical or moral code will place unnatural boundaries on our actions. Who would accept this without some benefit? There doesn't even have to be a real benefit, only a perceived or even hoped-for benefit. Without a test like this, we can never truly separate the source from the results.

But I wonder if we have to? What I just proposed: that no one follows an ethic without some benefit, points us to the results as the part that matters. There is no totally neutral or totally negative ethic because the only reason for its existence are the positive results.

Now, let's talk about relativism. The idea of relativism is that all ethical and moral codes are relative. Many, philosophers or not, buck this idea. The thought that no one way of living is objectively correct is unnerving. It opens up the possibility of being wrong, or at least not totally right. But if we think back to the previous thought experiment, we discovered that it is not the source of an ethic that is important but the results of an ethic. Perfect source or not, many will shun parts of religious code that they deem harmful.

Here's an example. The difference between Christians that believe Homosexuality is immoral and those that do not, is not their belief in the perfection of their source, but their evaluation of the results. Those that believe Homosexuality immoral think it has negative consequences. Those that believe it is moral think it does not. Both sides believe in the perfection of their God. They just disagree on the interpretation of certain tenets. This disagreement stems from the perceived presence of harm or benefit in that specific tenant.

So, in the end, it does not matter if the ethic is subjective or objective. We will still evaluate the results.

Now, what if we don't claim that the source is subjective, but the evaluation? Perhaps a relativist doesn't say that only the source is subjective, but also our evaluation of the results. This is clearly the case in the previous example. One group evaluates certain sexual preferences as negative while the other evaluates it as positive (or at least neutral). Do we need objective evaluations, or can we be content with the subjective?

First, let me share my hypothesis. I don't believe any of us are entirely convinced that there is such a thing as an objective human evaluation. We all understand that our perspective is limited and our observations are flawed. Instead, some of us claim that we do not partake in the evaluations. Instead, we outsource that responsibility to our objective source. It does not matter if the source itself is objective, only the results. However, it does matter to us when we think the source has objectively measured the results and certified their (eventual) positive outcomes. This is why we buck when we think of relativism. We didn't care about the source, we cared about the results, but we were operating under the assumption that our results were vetted by an objective source. If it turns out that we were the ones vetting all along, and I believe most of us truly understand that we are subjective sources, then we are suddenly standing on a shaky foundation.

Can we escape from this relativist problem too? Can we show that it doesn't actually matter, as we did with our relativist ethical source? Or is a subjective ethical evaluation truly a problem that we should seek to avoid?

I think we can do away with this problem too by acknowledging the continual choice we make. We have an ethical code that is one of many, perhaps infinite, codes to choose from. Every time we are presented with another code, we re-choose. Most of the time we continue with our current code, occasionally we change our perspective and actions based on new information. In other words: we are evaluating the results of ethics and choosing the best one. Even if we choose the same one, based on an "objective" source, we are still evaluating and choosing.

I don't believe someone would continually choose an ethic they honestly believed was actively harmful, even if it came from an objective source. Eventually, they would begin to question the objectivity of their source. These are not two ideas that we are likely to hold at the same time. Either our ethic has an objective source and good results, or a flawed source and bad results (or perhaps a mixed-bag of results).