Is morality objective?

The question

Almost everyone agrees that torturing a child for fun is wrong. But what kind of fact is that? When you say it, are you describing something true independent of anyone's opinion, as you are when you say Mount Everest is the tallest mountain? Or are you expressing a feeling, a cultural rule, or a preference so widely shared that it feels like a fact?

This is a question about ethics rather than within it. It does not ask which acts are right, but what rightness is. Philosophers call it metaethics.

Moral realists say there are objective moral facts: some things are right and wrong regardless of what any individual or culture believes. Anti-realists deny this, in many different ways: morality might be invented, constructed by agreement, an expression of emotion, or simply mistaken.

“The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.”
Socrates, in Plato, Euthyphro, 10a (trans. Benjamin Jowett)

Why it matters

If there are no moral facts, it is hard to say that a culture which practised slavery was mistaken, rather than merely different. Moral progress, the abolition of slavery, the extension of rights, would be change, not improvement.

If there are moral facts, we face hard questions about how we know them, why they should motivate us, and why intelligent people disagree about them so deeply.

Key terms

MetaethicsThe branch of ethics that asks what moral claims mean, whether they can be true, and how we could know them, rather than which things are right or wrong.
Moral realismThe view that there are objective moral facts that hold independently of what anyone believes or feels.
Moral relativismThe view that moral claims are true or false only relative to a culture or individual, with no standpoint-independent moral truth.
ExpressivismThe view that moral statements do not describe facts but express attitudes, such as approval or disapproval.
Error theoryIn ethics, the view that moral statements try to state objective facts but are all false, because there are no such facts.
Is-ought gapHume's observation that conclusions about what ought to be cannot be validly drawn from premises only about what is, without some further step.

The positions

Position I

Moral realism

There are objective moral facts, true independently of what anyone believes, and we can come to know some of them.

Position II

Relativism

Moral truths are relative to a culture or framework. An act can be right in one society and wrong in another.

Position III

Expressivism

Moral statements do not describe facts. They express attitudes, like approval or disapproval, or commitments to plans.

Position IV

Error theory

Moral claims try to state objective facts, but there are no such facts, so all of them are false.

Arguments and objections

Moral realism

Best argument: Some moral claims seem as certain as anything we know: gratuitous cruelty is wrong. Our practice of moral argument, in which we give reasons, correct mistakes and recognise progress, makes sense only if there is something to get right. Derek Parfit and others argue that moral truths are like mathematical truths: not physical objects, but real, and knowable through reason.
Strongest objection: J. L. Mackie's 'argument from queerness': objective moral facts would be utterly unlike anything else in the universe, facts that by their nature tell you what to do. And how could we perceive them? We have no 'moral sense organ'.
The reply: Realists answer that mathematical and logical truths are equally 'queer' by Mackie's standard, and we know them through reasoning, not perception. Naturalist realists argue that moral facts are simply natural facts, about wellbeing and suffering, and are no stranger than facts about health.

Relativism

Best argument: Moral codes vary enormously across cultures and history, which is what one would expect if they were human creations rather than discoveries. Relativism also seems to encourage tolerance and humility about imposing our values on others.
Strongest objection: It makes moral reformers wrong by definition, since they oppose their culture's standards. It cannot condemn even the worst practices of other societies. And the tolerance it recommends would itself be just one culture's value, with no special authority.

Expressivism

Best argument: This explains why moral judgments motivate: they are themselves attitudes, not beliefs about strange facts. It fits a scientific picture with no objective values in it. Modern expressivists like Simon Blackburn argue that, once understood, the view allows us to say almost everything a realist says, including 'cruelty is wrong whatever anyone thinks'.
Strongest objection: The Frege-Geach problem: moral words behave logically like factual ones. 'If lying is wrong, then getting your brother to lie is wrong' is a perfectly good premise in an argument, though no one is expressing disapproval of lying in uttering it. Expressivism struggles to explain this.
The reply: Expressivists have built increasingly sophisticated semantic theories to handle embedded moral claims; whether they succeed is one of the most technical debates in philosophy.

Error theory

Best argument: Mackie argued that ordinary moral talk does presuppose objective, inescapably binding values; that is what we mean by 'wrong'. But the world contains no such values, so our moral talk is systematically in error, like talk of witches.
Strongest objection: It seems to imply that 'torturing children for fun is wrong' is false, which many regard as a decisive reductio. And if we keep using moral language anyway, as Mackie suggested, what has been gained?

Who argued what

Moral realism Plato, Derek Parfit, Immanuel Kant, Russ Shafer-Landau
Relativism Gilbert Harman, David Wong
Expressivism David Hume, Simon Blackburn, Allan Gibbard
Error theory J. L. Mackie, Richard Joyce

Where you stand

Is morality objective?

Choose one to see how people answer.

Variations

Euthyphro's dilemma

In Plato's dialogue, Socrates asks: is something good because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is good? If the first, morality is arbitrary. If the second, goodness is independent of the gods. The dilemma is still used to argue that morality cannot simply be a matter of anyone's command.

The is-ought gap

David Hume noticed that moral writers move from statements about what is to statements about what ought to be without explaining how. No collection of facts about the world, he suggested, logically entails a conclusion about what we should do. See is-ought gap.

Go deeper

Evolutionary debunking

Sharon Street argues that evolution shaped our moral intuitions to promote survival and reproduction, not to track objective truth. If moral facts existed independently of us, it would be a remarkable coincidence if evolution happened to make us believe them. Realists reply that some moral beliefs, like 'pain is bad', may be both useful and true, and that the argument proves too much, since evolution also shaped our reasoning about mathematics.

Schools of thought: Utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, Virtue ethics

Related ideas

Open questions

If morality were invented, would that make it any less binding on you?
Can you say a past society was wrong without believing in moral facts?
Why do intelligent people disagree about morality more than about mathematics?

All questions · Take me somewhere · Print this page

The question

Why it matters

Key terms

The positions

Moral realism

Relativism

Expressivism

Error theory

Arguments and objections

Moral realism

Relativism

Expressivism

Error theory

Who argued what

Where you stand

Variations

Euthyphro's dilemma

The is-ought gap

Go deeper

Related ideas

What makes an action right?

Can anyone deserve blame?

Would you be good if no one could see?

The veil of ignorance

Do animals have moral rights?

The trolley problem

Further reading and sources

Open questions