Misconceptions of Subjectivism

## Preface

It’s fair to say that meta-ethical categories are not uniformly expressed everywhere. Some people require that Objectivism comes with Cognitivism, some people state that Subjectivism must be about feelings and some conflate an epistemic moral theory with an ontological moral theory. Personally, I find this messes up the conversation by not properly taking apart the concepts and asking how they fit.

There also exists something called Normative Subjectivism, which is a normative theory using the same name as the meta ethical theory, and some of the misconceptions might be based on believing that someone who claims they are a meta ethical subjectivist is saying they are a normative ethical subjectivist.

All this is to say that it’s understandable that there is miscommunication in the field. There seems to be no authoritative standard on how these terms are used and perhaps this will serve as further clarity in the discussion moving forward.

## Subjectivism

I take meta-ethical subjectivism to be, at the very minimum, these two concepts:

1. There are no objective truth conditions to categorical moral statements. (Things like "Murder is Wrong"
2. Morality is relative to individual subjects.

This is a tad broader then normally construed, but I want to include any subjectivist approaches that I’m aware of.

### Misconception 1) If morality is subjective, then you must accept other people’s morality, no matter what it is.

All that is meant by morality is subjective is that each subject has their own sense of morality, but that does not in any sense tell us whether agreement or disagreement will arise, or how it is resolved. Conflicting moral statements can be dealt with many ways in subjectivism, and sometimes “live and let live” is the option people go for. For instance, within society, people vote on abortion with their own moral intuitions, but whatever the vote is, is what dictates the rules and people accept that fact. This is compatible with moral subjectivism. But so is the idea that if someone has a vastly different moral system to you (perhaps they think it’s fine to kill people they don’t like), you can do everything in your power to stop them.

Moral subjectivists do not use their power because they believe:

1. They have the objective correct stance
2. They have some outside justification that endorses this use of power
3. They believe their views have some better grounding than those who they oppose

They simply do it because they are driven to do it, they have the psychological motivation to stop people with opposing morals and the fact that there is no objective standard by which to judge these things does not prevent them from doing so. Subjectivists don’t have to accept the standards of anyone else.

No matter how many times you inform a subjectivist that they don’t have an objective standard, or outside justification, or superior grounding to do so will not matter, because they don’t believe they need those things to perform acts against others. Assuming they need those things is to assume Objectivism, which is what the subjectivist rejects to begin with. All you’re doing is informing them that they don’t have something they don’t think is required for morality to work. This misconception is stemming from simply not understanding subjectivism.

### Misconception 2) Subjectivism is contradictory.

This goes as the following:

1) If subjectivism is true, then there is no objective meta ethics.

2) If there is no objective meta-ethics, there’s no reason to believe in subjectivism.

C) Subjectivism cannot support subjectivism, and it contradicts itself.

This is a misconception that arises from not understanding the difference between meta-ethics and normative ethics. Subjectivism can be (and most often is) an objective theory about how normative ethics work. The meta-ethical theory Subjectivism can be objectively true, and all normative accounts of morality are not objectively true.

As a simple analogy, I can have an objective theory about taste-pleasure that goes like this: All taste pleasure is based on an interaction between a subject's tongue/brain and the chemical composition of the object on the tongue. Because different tongues/brains interpret chemicals differently, people do not get the same taste sensation out of the same objects. Therefore, there is no categorical truth about what tastes good and what tastes good is relative to each individual. That is an objective theory stating how taste works and the theory is that taste is relative. The theory itself isn’t relative, taste pleasure is. And, analogically, moral subjectivism can be an objective theory that says that moral positions are relative to an individual.

This misconception conflates the difference between the theory itself, and what the theory is talking about.

### Misconception 3) Subjectivists are only subjectivists so they can do immoral things.

First, this has the problem of assuming there is an objective standard of “immoral things” by which a subjectivist can be judged by. (Or perhaps you are bringing your own standard, in which case you’re very confused). Keep in mind that this is exactly what a subjectivist rejects, so you beg the question.

Secondly, subjectivists tend to have rather benign and ordinary moral intuitions when compared to others. They tend to be boring normal human beings, with a standard variance, when it comes to their sense of morality. I do not meet subjectivists who want to steal, murder, rape, kill. Most do not want to harm other people; most are moderately kind and moderately selfish.

Thirdly, many people who call themselves objectivists do plenty of things most consider shitty. Liars, cheats, killers often think there is an objective standard of morality, and it either happens to align with the things they do or it doesn’t and they just don’t care about it.

Fourthly, if subjectivism is true, it’s true for all people, not just those who believe in subjectivism, it’s a theory of how morality works, and thus is applicable to every single being who has a moral capability. So those who call themselves objectivists, if subjectivism is correct, are also expressing something subjective. So whatever moral activities it is that people do is all accountable to subjectivism if subjectivism is true.

I see no evidence that anyone who truly philosophically endorses a form of subjectivism as the best account for morality as acting any different than the average person.