It is possible to defend objective morality. This would be in two steps. One would be to show universals exist. Then to show moral principles are universals. Next to show they are known or can be known by reason. Yellow is a universal. Yellow is a color. It is not an idea. It is something yellow things have in common. It does exist. For the sentence "Yellow is a color" to be true, yellow must exist. Therefore universals exist. There are many kinds of universals. Moral principles are an example of universals. To know the existence of a universal you do not need a reason. You can recognize its truth.
WHAT IS A UNIVERSAL?
I have here two white pieces of paper. They are not the same piece of paper, but they have something in common: they are both white.What there are two of are called "particulars" - the pieces of paper are particulars. What is or can be common to multiple particulars are called "universals" - whiteness is a universal. A universal is capable of being present in multiple instances, as whiteness is present in many different pieces of paper. A particular doesn't have 'instances' and can only be present in one place at a time (distinct parts of it can be in different locations though), and particulars are not 'present in' things.
A universal is a predicable: that is, it is the kind of thing that can be predicated of something. A particular can not be predicated of anything. For instance, whiteness can be predicated of things: you can attribute to things the property of being white (as in "This paper is white"). A piece of paper can't be predicated of something; you can't attribute the piece of paper as a property (or action or relation) to something else. The piece of paper can only be a subject of judgements;
WHAT IS "A PRIORI"? AND WHAT IS EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE?
By an item of "empirical knowledge" I mean something that is known that either is an observation or else is justified by observations. A priori knowledge is that which is not empirical - i.e., an item of knowledge which is not an observation and which is not justified by observations.
EXAMPLES OF UNIVERSALS
LOGIC IS A PRIORI
By "the principles of logic" in this argument, I will mean exclusively principles of inference: that is, principles stating what is and is not a valid or cogent argument. For example, "Modus ponens is valid" is a principle of logic, and it's one that we know. How do we know these things?
(1) Principles of logic are not observations.
You do not perceive, by the senses, the logical relation between two propositions. You may be able to perceive that A is true, and you may be able to perceive that B is true; but what you can not perceive is that B follows from A. You can also, perhaps, observe by introspection (I take introspection to be empirical knowledge) that you actually infer B from A. But again, you do not thereby observe that it was valid to do so.
Validity is not something literally visible, audible, tangible, etc.
(2) The principles of logic can not in general be known by inference.
MATHEMATICS IS A PRIORI
Consider the proposition
(B) 1 + 1 = 2,
which I know to be true. Is this proposition based on any observations? If so, what observations?
In order to learn the concept '2', I probably had to make some observations. I might have been shown a pair of oranges and told, "This is two oranges." I might then have been shown two fingers and told, "Here are two fingers." And so on. This might have spurred me to form the concept 'two'. And if not for the observations of the oranges, the fingers, etc., I might never have been able to form that concept.
I mention this, however, only to explain why it is irrelevant. As I previously explained, the issue is not whether observations were necessary in my coming to understand the equation (B) but whether any observation justifies the proposition, i.e., provides evidence of its truth.
How about this, then: I see one orange, over here. Then I see another orange, over there. I put the two oranges together. I count them, and get the result "2". I therefore conclude that 1 orange plus 1 orange = 2 oranges. Perhaps by doing this experiment with a lot of different kinds of objects, I eventually conclude (inductively) that 1 + 1 = 2, regardless of what type of objects are being counted. Thus, observation has confirmed (B). Perhaps by also confirming a lot of other equations, I might also be able to inductively support the axioms of arithmetic.
This idea, of course, involves a confusion about the nature of addition. Addition is not a physical operation. It is not the operation of physically or spatially bringing groups together, and the equation (B) does not assert that when you physically unite two distinct objects, you will wind up with two distinct objects at the end. Indeed, if it did, the equation would be wrong. It is possible, for example, to pour 1 liter of a substance and 1 liter of another substance together, and wind up with less than 2 liters total. (This happens because the liquids are partially miscible.) This does not refute arithmetic.
Addition is solely a mental operation, sc. the mental operation of taking two groups and considering them as one group. Thus, I can take a group of ten people, and another group of seven people that I have identified, and decide to mentally group all of them together. The result is a group of 17 people. That is what it means to say "10 + 7 = 17." I do not physically alter the people in any way.
ETHICS IS A PRIORI
That knowledge of moral principles is also a priori follows from the following two theses:
(1) Moral principles are not observations. The content of every observation is descriptive.
That is, you do not literally see, touch, hear, etc. moral value.
Moral principles can not be inferred from descriptive premises. This principle is just an instance of the general fact that you cannot derive a conclusion within one subject matter from premises in a different subject matter. Just as you cannot expect to derive a geometrical conclusion from premises in economics, or derive a conclusion about birds from premises that don't say anything about birds, you should not expect to derive a conclusion about morality from non-moral premises.
Universals are synthetic a priori knowledge
HUME
Part of the problem comes from Hume. It is possible to sum up Hume's vital
assumptions about reasoning in a single proposition: Reason does nothing except locate the presence or absence of contradictions. Whenever Hume wants to show that reasoning cannot support something, he uses the same argument: the alternative is not a
contradiction.
TO SHOW HUME'S IDEA OF REASON IS CONTRADICTS ITSELF AND IS THUS INCHOHEENT
An Alternative Conception of Reason. Consider the claim: Circular arguments are invalid. Think about it for a while. You can see that it is true, but how? Even
though Hume himself uses this principle in his argument, we could never justify it on his principles. The denial is not a contradiction. We can at least conceive that "Some circular arguments are valid" is true. At this point it will be useful to summon different levels or modes of necessity.
So what we have is we know things that are not known by observation nor by induction nor deduction. But we know them to be true. That is by reason. Hume made a terrible mistake that has eroded the foundations of morality. For the way we know morality is by reason.
Hume wants to show only we can have only empirical knowledge. But that is false. There are well known counter examples and he gives some himself. One example is nothing can be yellow and blue in the same place at the same time. There are many examples. But then he resorts to a trick to claim knowledge not based on observation is meaningless unless it is the kind he claims.
REASON RECOGNIZES UNIVERSALS. AND UNIVERSALS HAVE DIFFERENT DEGREES OF NECESSITY.
What I am saying here is that there are degrees of necessity known by reason. "Ought" can not be derived from an "is" but it is a universal and is one mode of necessity.
Non sensed and not thought knowledge recognizes modes of necessity.
The last paragraph. What I am saying is certain universals are given to be taken up by the mind to make synthesis. This is the basic idea of Kant. The elements of universals have to come from outside. Objects of cognition is I think how he would put it.
Appendix:
I have to apologize for this essay. It would not even have occurred to me to write it if not for the fact that in most USA universities they teach the opposite to freshmen, people not really prepared well to defend traditional Torah values from onslaught and attack.
(2) Kant wants that morality should have formal rules. That it is suggestive that he uses the idea of a universal rule. He is trying to capture the essence of a universal and apply it to morality. Morality is the same as the laws of physics but you just replace the "equals" sign with "ought."
But formal rules miss something about content.
Schopenhauer wants to lose the formal aspect of it and get down to essence.
The Rambam has both these areas interacting.
That is to say: universals have a problem that they are content free. And pure content has another problem that it is individual, not a universal. The Rambam links the two. The rules flow from the content.
Morality is rules but rules that flow from an area not open to human cognition.
I acknowledge my debt to Dr Michael Huemer Bryan Caplan and others for this essay. I am just putting their ideas into simple form. The only thing original is the end of the essay about reason and modes of necessity, I might try to work into this the argument of John Searle about the incoherence of theories about truth being relative.
