What’s in a name? Amoralism, nihilism, and moral skepticism

I have used “amoralism” to refer to a view of morality that rests upon the thesis that the central terms of moral evaluation such as “right,” “wrong,” “just,” “unjust,” “duty,” and the like fail to denote when uttered in moral use.

This I take to be the best explanation of the relevant realities not only of our social situation but also of academic, meta-ethical thought.

The question might be asked why not call this view “moral skepticism” or perhaps even “moral nihilism”?

But neither would be quite right.

As I have developed it from the above, amoralism involves such additional claims as these.

• Declarative sentences in which moral terms are thus used such as “slavery is unjust” or “child abuse is morally permissible,” though purporting to express moral propositions and to be all of them either true or false, express no propositions and are none of them either true or false.
• Hence no such sentence can or does express a reason for or against any action or a consideration in favor of or against any institution, law, policy, constitution, form of government, or indeed anything at all.
• Hence while “that snow is white” denotes the fact that snow is white “that murder is wrong” does not denote either a falsehood or a fact.
• There are no moral facts; nor, indeed, any moral falsehoods.
• There are no moral reasons for or against anything.
• There are no moral considerations.
• And there is no moral knowledge.

Neither, come to that, are there moral beliefs, sensu strictu, given that the objects of such beliefs, were there any, would be propositions expressed by sentences of the above sort.

They would be moral propositions.

But there are no moral propositions.

What are mistaken for moral beliefs are in fact beliefs – false beliefs – about declarative sentences in which terms of moral evaluation occur in moral use.

Beliefs such as that “slavery is unjust” is true, expresses a true moral proposition, expresses a fact, and expresses a decisive consideration against the institution of slavery as well as a reason to use coercive power to suppress or punish it.

But also such beliefs as that “homosexuality is wrong” is false, expresses a false moral proposition, and for that reason does not express a fact, a valid reason against engaging in homosexual activity, or a valid consideration against the legal toleration of it.

But of course in something other than sensu strictu we can and should speak of these very beliefs about such sentences as moral beliefs.

It is they, after all, that account for and furnish the conscience of the moral believer.

So, why not call this view “moral skepticism”?

Because as these things are generally, though not exceptionlessly, understood the skeptic disbelieves – that is, he thinks to be false – what is asserted, and that is not the position here.

A skeptic regarding the occult, for example, disbelieves in magic, demons, spirits, ghosts, etc., and in the claimed powers of mediums, magicians, witches, and sorcerers.

He thinks it is false that these things exist and it is false that people have the abilities claimed by these folk.

A skeptic about religion disbelieves that gods, demons, angels, God, Jahweh, or Allah even exist, and hence also he disbelieves the stories and myths about them.

But the amoralist does not disbelieve the moral claims of the believer.

His position is instead on all fours with that of the anthropologist considering the claims of the Islander.

The Islander says “You cannot eat that fruit. It is taboo.”

The anthropologist does not think the Islander’s sentence is true.

But that does not mean he thinks it is false.

Rather, he thinks it without meaning and so neither true nor false.

The skeptic would disbelieve the Islander and say “The fruit is not taboo.”

But the anthropologist would believe the skeptic’s sentence also meaningless.

Moral nihilism is in a like case with moral skepticism, being equally committed to the truth of sentences the doctrine here declares meaningless.

“Nothing is wrong” and “everything is permitted,” both commonly taken as definitive claims of moral nihilism, are neither of them true.

Both are as meaningless as the most orthodox affirmations of the most abject moral conventionalism they are meant to reject.

So both labels are, each in its own way, unsuitable.

On the other hand, “amoralism” comes very close to meaning doing without morality in evaluation and decision.

And that is indeed what we must do, if the doctrine I have called “amoralism” is true.

We must make do, in evaluation and decision, without specifically moral reasons and without specifically moral considerations, since there are none of either.

[Update 08302014.

I have lately learned there is an Aussie philosopher, Richard Joyce, whose work I have not read but who, supposedly, takes the same view I do.

Interesting.

Update 05192015.

I have since checked and his views are by no means the same as mine.]

Hence the suitability of the name.

All the same, the view espoused here does of course qualify as moral skepticism on some acceptations of that term.

Nihilism, too, I suppose.

For example, the position here frankly disbelieves that there are properties denoted by "wrong," "right," and the like in moral use and flatly rejects that there are moral facts and that any moral assertion is true.

Hence it also disbelieves and denies that there are moral reasons or moral considerations or even, strictly speaking, moral convictions.

Regarding all these things the position is skeptical of much that moral believers believe.

Indeed, these things are the very foundation of the moral faith.

But they all concern what philosophers call "meta-ethical" points.

So the position is aptly described as a form of meta-ethical skepticism and a form of meta-ethical nihilism.

But those are really not, respectively, the same as moral skepticism and moral nihilism and, in fact, the meta-ethical and the normative positions are contraries.

Mackie's embrace of skepticism on both the normative and meta-ethical levels is a serious flaw in his ground-breaking and influential book.