In Defense Of Practical Moral Skepticism

I thank TheSkeptic for this debate. It is a real interesting topic and should prove to be an exciting debate. To begin, my opponent states that his "burden is to demonstrate that practical moral skepticism is a sound stance. " I will wait till my opponent provides specific arguments for this position in the next round before attacking it directly. In this round, on the other hand, I will indirectly argue against moral skepticism by proposing an alternative ethical position (one of the ways that my opponent states that I can negate his argument). Before doing so, however, I'd like to pose what I think will be some important meta-ethical questions: Why does ethics exist? What is the function of ethics? And as an anthropological corollary to these questions, Why is ethics everywhere? What is the explanation for the fact that every society has some ethics or other (sociologists and anthropologists generally agree about the universal presence of some kind of ethical norms in all societies)? In answering these questions, I think we will begin to see why there is a reason to act morally. The questions and answers are somewhat related: ethics exists everywhere, across all societies, because it performs a function that humans in association everywhere have found extremely important. This much seems obvious enough. And this "important" function would help us begin to understand why ethics exists in the first place. Now, it is clear that the actions of a particular person are necessarily connected with the actions of some other person; the outcome of some action you do varies depending upon what I do. I am not saying all actions are always connected in this way, but at least sometimes, they are. When actions are connected in this way, we can call them mutually connected. The function of ethics, I contend, is to coordinate our actions with those of others to mutual benefit in a way that goes beyond the coordination achieved through evolutionarily instilled patterns of behavior; the coordination ethics achieves is more extensive and better adapted to new and changing circumstances. This background helps us understand why ethics exists in the first place. In other words, ethics exists because at least sometimes it is possible to coordinate actions to mutual benefit. It is a fortunate fact that the world presents us with many opportunities for coordinated action to mutual benefit; you would have to invoke quite elaborate science-fiction scenarios to imagine a world with no opportunities at all for cooperation to mutual benefit. So, when we are able to coordinate our actions to achieve mutual benefits that go beyond the benefits we would achieve alone or through evolutionarily instilled behavior, ethics emerges. This of course explains why there are so many different moralities across societies: since coordination can take many different forms, there is no limit to the variety of coordination schemes. The ethical beliefs that would emerge in any society would differ in different situations (for example, in climatic or geographical factors, in social history, in inherited social situations, etc. ). The main point about this ethical system that must be made is that it is not invariant; in other words, it is always changing according to the particular circumstances that emerge. The ethical beliefs that it gives rise to, ethical beliefs that help us facilitate closer coordination among people to mutual benefit, are subject to change at any moment when different beliefs become known or necessary for better coordination to mutual benefit. The ethical position I propose, then, is an emergent ethics, an ethical system that emerges in each circumstance according to the specific ways in which two people or more can coordinate their actions to mutual benefit. Ethical beliefs emerge in this system, but they do not define the ethical system itself. To act morally here is only to act in such a way as to coordinate one's actions with another to their mutual benefit. Furthermore, in this system, to act morally or ethically is always to act in your self-interest. Because ethical beliefs in this system always coordinate your action with another so as to achieve a greater benefit than you could achieve without coordinating your action with another, the only reason not to be moral in this system would be in the case that someone does not want to benefit themselves. This leads to a philosophical problem however, as each individual's personal interest is defined individually and uniquely; each individual determines what is good for them. What this means is that a person cannot not act to their benefit, as they will always act in their interest, and if they do not act in their interest, they have in effect redefined what their interest is. In other words, it is impossible not to act in one's interest, whether that interest is conscious or not. Whatever the case, whatever someone believes is in their best interest, their will always emerge some possibility to coordinate one's actions with another to mutual benefit, whether one knows they are doing this or not. In other words, what emerges is an ethic specific to their particular person and situation. This is an important point, and I want to keep stressing that this ethical system is circumstantial, it is specific to the situation and to the people involved, and as such, it only emerges in and through the situation at hand. What it means to act morally in this ethical system is always being redefined, but the important point is that this ethical system does provide a reason to act morally. In some sense, we can almost say that in this ethical system, it is impossible not to act morally when the opportunity to act morally presents itself according to each individual's circumstantial and emergent ethical system. Finally, some people may not act in such a way as to maximize their mutual benefit, but this does not mean they are not acting morally. As long as someone coordinates their actions such that it does lead to mutual benefit, it does not matter. Sure, they may be able to act more morally; even so, they are still acting morally irrespective of how much better or worse they can be doing. It is in this that this system is so powerful. This is the alternative ethical position I propose to moral skepticism. It is a sound system that makes room for all the variation in particular ethical systems, while simultaneously providing a reason to act morally. It also requires no invariance to any of its ethical norms, as these norms are constantly shifting with the change of circumstance. Before concluding this turn, I would also like to present another way to negate moral skepticism: if it can be shown that there exists some characteristic or property of people in virtue of which they are owed moral behavior. If this can in fact be convincingly argued for, then it seems reasonable that moral skepticism would be negated: there would in fact be a reason to act morally to anything with this characteristic. I will take this argument up in the next round as I do not have room for it here. Suffice it to say, the candidates for this characteristic are the usual ones: being rational, being an agent, being sentient, being conscious, or some other variant of these (they are all related). I tell this to my opponent in case he would like to begin preparing an argument to refute this position.