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The Argument From Moral Disagreement, Part 1

Take a look at the questions listed below and think about them. When you're done, ask your roommates what they think. Ask your parents and grandparents as well. Ask your pastors and see what they say. Make sure to ask your profs, too. See if they agree with your roommates, parents, pastors, and so on. If you're up to it, try these questions on random strangers. See what they think. Or, if none of these suggestions sound like fun, at least try to imagine what you'd hear from these various groups of people, then read the concluding paragraphs of this article.

OK, go.

A List of Juicy Moral Questions, Arranged Quasi-Thematically

Let's turn our attention to people of legal drinking age. For these people, is drinking wrong? If not, is it OK for them to get drunk — at least on occasion? Perhaps it's OK to drink, but never OK to drink enough to get drunk. But then what makes the difference? How could it be OK to have (say) one beer, but not OK to have two beers; or OK to have two beers, but not OK to have three beers? Some people seem to think there's a moral difference between drinking different kinds of alcohol — say, between drinking wine and tequila. Is this right? If so, again, what's the difference?

Perhaps it's OK to drink, and perhaps it's OK to have two beers (so long as two beers isn't sufficient to get drunk), but it's better (morally speaking) to only have one beer, and better still to have no beers at all. Is this right? Is drinking morally permissible, but abstinence morally preferable?

And what about Communion? If it's not OK to drink, then why do some churches serve wine at Communion? And for that matter, even if it's OK so long as you're of legal drinking age, some churches serve Communion wine to people under the drinking age. Is this OK, morally speaking? If it's not, then what do we make of The Last Supper? (In case you've not heard, there's widespread agreement among scholars that some of the Disciples were only in their teens.¹)

How about smoking? Are cigarettes OK? How about cigars and pipes? Are they OK? Perhaps they are all wrong (morally speaking), but cigarettes are worse than pipes and cigars. Does this sound right? Or, maybe only cigarettes are wrong while pipes and cigars are fine? All three are legal, assuming you're 18. Should we conclude that they're all morally permissible, then? If not, what makes them wrong? Or what makes some wrong but not others?

What about dancing? Is it OK to dance? If so, when, and where? Are certain kinds of dancing better (morally speaking) than others? (Is it OK to dance, so long as you're not doing anything particularly provocative with your hips?) If so, what should we make of the role culture plays in the kinds of dances we find ourselves naturally attracted to and naturally uncomfortable with?

Dating, marriage, and …

How about dating and courtship? Is courtship morally superior to dating? Are they moral equals? If there's a difference — if one's morally superior to the other — what makes that difference?

And how about physical relationships before marriage? Is it OK to kiss before you're married? If so, are certain kinds of kissing off limits? More generally, how far are you morally permitted to go before marriage? Where, exactly, is the line?

For that matter, is there a line even within marriage? Are husbands and wives morally permitted to do whatever they want with each other? Or are certain kinds of sex immoral even within marriage? What is sex even for? Should married couples engage in it only for the sake of procreation? Or can they have sex just for fun? Is lust possible within marriage? I mean, is it possible for a man to lust after his own wife, or for a woman to lust after her own husband? If so, is lust wrong in this context?

Is it even OK to be talking about this stuff? I mean, what if we're causing someone to stumble? On the other hand, though, what if not talking about it leaves someone without the resources for good decision making? Sexuality is, generally speaking, a private matter. When is it morally permissible to speak about it in public?

And what about the point of marriage itself? Are married couples morally obligated to have kids? Are they at least morally obligated to try to have kids? Perhaps they're not, but having kids is still better (morally speaking) than not having them, right? Is having three kids better than having two kids, and having two kids better than having one kid?

And divorce? Is it ever morally permissible to get divorced? If so, what are the proper grounds for divorce? How bad do things have to be before it is morally justifiable?

And what about homosexuality? We're all familiar with the debate surrounding homosexual behavior. But what about homosexual desires? Are they immoral? Some people can't help but have homosexual desires. Is this relevant to whether or not someone is morally blameworthy for having them? More generally, is it ever right to blame someone for something he can't help?

Clothes

What about modesty — the way we (do or don't) dress? Is cleavage OK? If so, how much? And how about hip-huggers? What about tight clothes in general? Do we have a moral obligation to wear clothes that don't accentuate our physical features? If so, do big-breasted women have a moral obligation to wear baggier clothes than small-breasted women? And does modesty only concern women? Is it more important, morally speaking, for a woman to dress modestly than for a man to dress modestly? If so, why?

Tattoos and piercings

What about tattoos? Are they morally permissible? If so, does the subject matter of the tattoo make a difference? How about the location of the tattoo? And what about piercings? People generally agree that it's OK for a woman to get her ears pierced, but what about men? Can they get their ears pierced? And what about body piercings? Is there a moral difference between piercing your ears and piercing your lip or your belly button?

How about the arts we enjoy? Is it OK to listen to secular music? Some people seem to think it's OK to listen to secular country music, but not OK to listen to secular rap music. Is this right? And what about "postmodern" art? If the painting you're looking at isn't realistically and accurately depicting something that may have taken place in the real world (as if the painting was really just a photograph), is it OK for you to enjoy it? Maybe it is, but maybe you should feel a little better about yourself (morally speaking) for preferring classical to postmodern varieties of art. Is this right? If not, why do so many people seem to find postmodern varieties of art morally distasteful?

How many of you read the Da Vinci Code and enjoyed it? I mean, you didn't agree with the things the characters were saying about Jesus and Christianity, but you thought the story was great. Should you feel guilty about this?

The environment and animal rights

Switching topics again, what about the environment? Do we have a moral obligation to keep the planet clean and beautiful? If so, what does this obligation look like? Should we pick up litter when we see it? Should we vote Green? Maybe just Democrat? Maybe we should vote Republican, but donate to the Sierra Club? And what about animal rights? And vegetarianism? Eating animals causes living things to suffer. It's wrong to cause something to suffer, isn't it? So isn't it better, morally speaking, to eat plants? If not, then what justifies our eating animals?

War and peace

And what about pacifism? Is killing ever morally justified? If so, when? And what about war? Is it ever OK to go to war? And even if it is OK to go to war (say, to stop Hitler from conquering the world), what about the war in Iraq? Is it morally justified? What makes the difference between morally justified violence and morally unjustified violence anyway?

Politics, patriotism and nationalism

Do we have any moral obligation to people in other countries? If so, how does this moral obligation weigh up against our moral obligation to our own country? Suppose, for example, that two presidential candidates differ significantly in their concern for the well-being of non-Americans. How important is this difference? With respect to other major voting issues — abortion, homosexuality, taxes — how heavily should we weigh this factor?

Money money money

Finally, what about the way we use our money and other personal resources? Given the fact that people are starving, even right here in America, is it immoral to own an enormous home? Is it immoral to own an expensive car? Do we have a moral obligation to serve the poor? Is it wrong to pass a beggar on the street without giving him anything?

Or how about the businesses we support? We shouldn't patronize strip-clubs, porn shops, and so on, right? But what about, say, casinos? What about the local bar? I know, many of you are too young to be in the local casino or bar. So what about Hooters, then? Would it be immoral to eat at Hooters? How about going to Hooters and ordering wings for take-out? Would that be morally objectionable? And what about, say, shopping at Abercrombie and Fitch? As a company, they seem to encourage teenage sexuality. Does this constitute a good (moral) reason to avoid their clothes?

More generally, if we know a business supports or engages in some kind of immoral practice (perhaps it treats its employees poorly), do we thereby have a moral obligation to boycott that business? At the other end of the spectrum, if we know a business supports or engages in some kind of morally praiseworthy practice, do we thereby have a moral obligation to support that business?

Suppose you have to choose between one of two stores, one that's really cheap but sells porn, and one that's not affordable but doesn't sell porn? Is it OK to shop at the cheap store? Or suppose you have to choose between a small, expensive business run by Christians and a cheaper, large business run by non-Christians. Do you have a moral obligation to support the Christian business? Do we even have a moral obligation to take this stuff into consideration? Is it even our business to wonder about this stuff?

The Argument from Moral Disagreement

OK, you get the picture. We could go on and on with questions like these, and each of them would require serious thought. What I want to point out, though, is the following:

First, even among white, upper-middle-class American evangelicals, we find significant disagreement on almost all of these questions. But now think about the factors that sometimes result in diverse moral sensibilities (differing personal interests, cultural and ethnic differences, economic differences, diverse theological perspectives, broader philosophical and religious differences, and so on) and suppose we pose these questions, not just to your average TrueU reader, but to everyone in the whole world. It goes without saying that we would find radically divergent opinions. In response to the questions above, we would find people taking every conceivable position, and for every conceivable reason.

So, here's point number 1:

There's a lot of moral disagreement in the world.

Second, imagine yourself debating some of the moral issues about which people disagree. Think about the abortion debate, or the welfare debate. Or, even better, think about a debate you might have with a Kashatriya Indian who supports the caste system. Would it be at all likely that either of you would be able to persuade the other? Probably not. You'd probably wind up in a stalemate, where both of you exhausted your argumentative resources and completely failed to make the other see things the way you see them.

So here's point number 2:

In addition to the amount of moral disagreement we find in the world, we find that moral disagreement runs deep. Unlike debates over (say) who will win the World Series this year, or whether or not 413 x 8.2 = 3386.6, moral disagreements are often intractable.

But don't points 1 and 2 give us reason to suspect that there's something fishy about morality? Can't we mount an argument from 1 and 2 to the conclusion that there's something deeply subjective about morality? Don't 1 and 2 suggest that moral judgments might be more like culinary judgments than empirical or mathematical judgments? At the end of the day, doesn't it look like "murder is wrong" is really just a way of saying you don't like murder?

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Do you have the answers to Blake's questions?

Join the discussion!

Well, I don't think so. So far as I can tell, there's no good argument from 1 and 2 to the conclusion that morality isn't objective. But as you've probably guessed, some people disagree with me. As you've also probably guessed, we're going to have to address that in part two of this series.