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"'. . . that He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.'
For from Zion will go forth the Law
Even the Word of God from Jerusalem."
Micah 4:2
| Others who hold that "good" is used in an informative way in ethical judgments are subjectivists. The private subjectivist maintains that the predication of "good" to anything [293] simply asserts the speaker’s personal approbation for it (e.g., Hume) or that it contributes to fullest satisfaction (e.g., Santayana). If this is the case, however, then moral judgments are never false unless the speaker is mistaken about his own psychology; at least all moral utterances are incorrigible. This is certainly a strange state of affairs; moral discourse is informative according to the private subjectivist and thereby capable of being true or false-yet it is never false! Also, two people could never mean the same thing even though there might be a linguistic agreement on a moral appraisal, for in "agreeing" that X is "good" the two speakers are not attributing to it the same property. All predications of "good" are statements about the speaker, not about the object under consideration. Furthermore, the private subjectivist could not reasonably answer to a question asking why he approves of X as "good," for he would either make an illegitimate reference to the goodness or value of the object independent of his feelings toward it or he would end up reasoning in a vicious circle. It is also meaningful for us to ask whether what the private subjectivist approves is actually good or not; yet on his basis such a question would be ridiculous. Although the private subjectivist holds that ethical discourse is informative and definable, oddly enough ethics is still not open to discussion. "Good" is simply relative to each moralist; therefore, ethics is destroyed because the notion of obligation cannot be derived from this conception of "good." | |
| A modification of the above proposal is found in the interest theory" of R. B. Perry, who defines "good" as an object of interest to someone. In this way Perry seems to deny that there is anything which is intrinsically good; for anything to be good it must sustain a certain relationship with a mind outside of it. Yet it certainly seems that when most people attribute goodness to something they are viewing that object as being in some way valuable for itself; at least what they appear to intend is something stronger than simply "someone has an interest in X." To hold that X is [294] "good" in customary discourse usually implies that others should value it. It is normally not muddled to appraise some-one’s interest as bad or evil; however, Perry’s construction would make it so. How does Perry’s relational view of "good" account for this stronger use of the term at all? Unless an intrinsic notion of goodness came into being as an apprehension of some objective reality, it would seem to be senseless; yet most people do not consider that it is absurd to view certain items or behavior as good irrespective of what people may think about them. Perry’s view must stretch the general limits of plausibility in order to account for the "forbidden fruit syndrome" (i.e., seeking the immoral for immorality’s sake). To explain this facet of moral experience by reference to ignorance or a confusion of priorities is simply not accurate or true to human nature at all. Perry’s view falls into the same pitfalls as subjectivism: there is no moral authority, universal obligation, or concrete direction offered by a theory which is at root nothing more than moral relativism. | |
| Another form of subjectivism is societal subjectivism; it holds that "good" applies to those things of which the group approves (e.g., Durkheim) or which is the law of the land or which has the sanction of tradition. Yet to say that something is "good" because it evokes the approval of most people has blatant difficulties. Obviously the majority is not always right; moving from 49% to 51% in the opinion polls does not make a certain behavior right. Again, it is not meaningless to ask whether what the group decided upon was in fact "good"; yet on this view the majority or common law or tradition would be right by definition! Furthermore, if this social approval view were correct, then all obligations could be removed by secrecy-which from an ethical viewpoint seems nonsense. All forms of subjectivism inherently destroy what ethics strives to attain: objective standards which can properly correct and direct man’s behavior. If moral principle has no restraining or corrective element, why should one bother to enunciate it? [295] |
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