Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!cs.utexas.edu!turpin
From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Moral blindness
Summary: Moral "perception" is not
	 like physical perception.
Message-ID: <7611@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 17 Jan 90 15:44:23 GMT
References: <7788@unix.SRI.COM> <9440032@hpsemc.HP.COM> <7244@tank.uchicago.edu>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 75

In article <7244@tank.uchicago.edu>, ddfr@tank.uchicago.edu (david director friedman) writes:
> I start by asking why I believe the positive statement is anything
> more than an assertion about what is happening in my head. ("I
> perceive a glass on the table.") The answer, I think, is that not
> only do I perceive a glass on the table, I also perceive the other
> things I would perceive if there were an objective reality out there,
> perceptible to other people. Among other things, I perceive you
> saying "yes, that is my glass" in resonse to my commenting on the
> glass. This does not prove objective reality; I could be imagining
> both the glass and you. But it at least means that the conjecture
> that objective reality is out there passes the only test
> (consistency) that I am in a position to impose on it. ...
>
> My next step is to claim that the "normative universe"--the set of
> propositions about good and bad, ought and ought not, meets the test
> of consistency about as well as the positive universe. It is my
> impression that most people, most of the time, if they clearly
> observe the same set of facts about a situation, reach the same
> normative conclusion. 

This is certainly true of some people most of the time, and
perhaps for most people some of the time, but I do not think it
is true of most people most of the time, as you claim.  

If the "some people" is your intellectual, classically liberal
circle of friends, they will agree about many normative claims
(some people, most of the time).  If you broaden the group to
include people with different outlooks, even from different
cultures, they might still agree about a few normative claims
(most people, some of the time).  But now try the following. 

Ask a broad group of people whether it is ever morally
permissible to simultaneously carry on a sexual relationship with
two people.  Along with Jeff Hummel and any renegade Mormons you
know, also ask an Orthodox rabbi and a conservative Southern
baptist preacher.  Or ask a broad group of people what they
should do when a man has sex with their sister, but then shows no
matrimonial intention.  Once again, let's include in the group, 
say, a strict Sunni from Saudi Arabia.

Or if you just think that sex is the exception, about which
people don't agree about normative facts, let's try something
more basic: murder.  It seems to me I have read more than once
that the Vikings outlawed murder ... if committed within fifteen
miles of home.  Outside that, it was all part of the trade.  (If
this seems too much like what we still expect of soldiers, then I
will use the example of certain cultures that practice some kinds
of murder for ritual purposes, rather than for mercenary ones.)

> Many people will disagree with this proposition. I think there are
> two reasons. ...
> 
> Second, most arguments on normative subjects, including essentially
> all the ones on this newsgroup, are not about moral facts but about
> moral theories. ...

How do you distinguish between a moral theory and a moral fact?
I suspect that you can "bullet-proof" your claim about broad
agreement on moral facts by dismissing all counter-examples as
theory.  When someone claims as the most essential moral fact
that one should love god with all their heart, is this fact or
theory?  Why? 

There is a basic difference between your normative universe and
the physical universe.  The consistencies to which you refer
about perception validate the physical objects with which we
deal.  The physical universe is not populated by propositions,
but by things.  (Admittedly, but irrelevant to the point,
different philosophies assign different ontological status to the
stuff of the physical universe.)  In contrast, your normative
universe is populated entirely by propositions -- there are no
other normative objects.  Your claims of consistency lie entirely
in the realm of "theory", without any connection to basic "fact". 

Russell