How the law needs to be written in the heart

In ethics, we seek a theory of obligation whose predictions match our best intuitions.

Suppose that explorers on the moon find a booklet with pages of platinum that contains an elegant collection of moral precepts that match our best intuitions to an incredible degree, better than anything that has been seen before. When we apply the precepts to hard cases, we find solutions that, to people we think of as decent, seem just right, and the easy cases all work correctly. And every apparently right action either follows from the precepts, or turns out to be a sham on deeper reflection.

This would give us good reason to think the precepts of the booklet in fact do sum up obligations. But now imagine Euthyphro came along and gave us this metaethical theory:

1. What makes an action right is that it follows from the content of this booklet.

Euthyphro would be wrong. For even though (1) correctly gives a correct account of what actions are in fact right, the right action isn’t right because it’s written in the booklet. (Is it written in the booklet because it’s right? Probably: the best theory of the booklet’s composition would be that it was written by some ethical genius who wrote what was right because it was right.)

Why not? What’s wrong with (1)? It seems to me that (1) is just too extrinsic to us. There is no connection between the booklet and our actions, besides the fact that the actions required by the booklet are exactly the right ones.

What if instead the booklet were an intrinsic feature of human beings? What if ethics were literally written in the human heart, so that microscopic examination of a dissected human heart found miniature words spelling out precepts that we have very good reason to think sum up the theory of the right? Again, we should not go for a Euthyphro-style theory that equates the right with what is literally written in the heart. Yet on this theory the grounds of the right would be literally intrinsic to us—and they could be essential to us, if we wish: further examination could show that it is an essential feature of human DNA that it generates this inscription. This would give us reason to think that human beings were designed by an ethical genius, but not that the ground of the right is the writing in the heart.

The lesson is this, I think. We want the grounds of the right to be of the correct sort. Being metaphysically intrinsic to us is a necessary condition for this, but it is not sufficient. We want the grounds of the right to be “close to us”: closer than our physical hearts, as it were.

But we also don’t want the grounds of the right to be too close to us. We don’t want the right to be grounded in the actual content of our desires or beliefs. We are looking for grounds that exercise some sort of a dominion over us, but not an alien dominion.

The more I think about this, the more I see the human form—understood as an actual metaphysical component intrinsic and essential to the human being—as having the exactly right balance of standoffish dominion and closeness to provide these grounds. In other words, Natural Law provides the right metaethics.

And the line of thought I gave above can also be repeated for epistemological normativity. So we have reason to think the Natural Law provides the right metaepistemology as well.

Generalizing the Euthyphro argument

On my reading of the Euthyphro, what is supposed to be wrong with the idea that the pious is what the gods love is that as even Euthyphro knows the gods love the pious because it is pious. (The famous dilemma is largely a rhetorical flourish. It’s clear to Socrates and Euthyphro which horn to take.)

It seems to me that little is gained when one says that the pious is what it is appropriate for the gods to love. For it is just as clear that the reason that it is appropriate for the gods to love pious actions is that the pious actions are pious.

Once we see this, we see that a similar objection can be levied against many appropriateness views, such as Strawson’s view that the blameworthy is what makes appropriate certain reactive attitudes. For it is clear that these reactive attitudes are appropriate precisely because the person is blameworthy.

There might be some things that are to be accounted for in terms of appropriate responses. But I can’t think of any other than perhaps pure social constructions like money.

The Euthyphro

I’ve realized today that I read the Euthyphro dilemma differently from how some other people do. I think some people read it as meant to be a real dilemma—a real philosophical question—whether the gods love the holy because it’s holy or whether things are holy because the gods love them.

Maybe it is a real philosophical question, but I don’t think that’s how the text intends it. I suspect that Plato (along, I expect, with Socrates) just straightforwardly thinks:

1. The gods love the holy because it is holy.

2. If the holy were defined as what is loved by the gods, then the holy would be the holy because the gods love it.

3. There is no circularity in explanation. (Implicit premise)

4. So, the holy is not defined as what is loved by the gods. QED

Theistic Natural Law and the Euthyphro Problem

Theistic Natural Law (TNL) theory seems to be subject to the Euthyphro problem much as divine command theory (DCT) is. On DCT, the Euthyphro problem takes the form of the question:

1. Why did God command what he commanded rather than commanding otherwise?

On TNL, the Euthyphro problem takes the form of the question:

2. Why did God create beings with the natures he did rather than creating beings with other natures?

In both cases, one can respond by talking of the essential goodness of God, by virtue of which he makes a good choice as to how to fittingly match the non-normative with the normative features of creatures. In the DCT case, God makes the match by benevolently choosing what sorts of creatures to create and what sorts of commands to give them. In the TNL case, God makes the match by benevolently choosing the non-deontic and deontic features of natures and then creating creatures with these natures. Thus, in the DCT case, God has reason to coordinate the sociality of creatures with the command to cooperate, while in the TNL case God has reason to actualize natures that either both include sociality and the duty to cooperate or to actualize natures that include neither.

So in what way is TNL better off than DCT with regard to the Euthyphro problem? The one thing I can think of in the vicinity is this: TNL allows for there to be deontic features that necessarily every natural includes, and it allows for there to be some deontic features of creatures that are entailed by the non-deontic features. For instance, perhaps every possible nature of an agent includes a prohibition against pointless imposition of torture, and every possible nature of a linguistic agent includes a prohibition against lying. But I am not sure this difference is really relevant to the Euthyphro problem.

I do prefer TNL to DCT, but not because of the Euthyphro problem. My reason for the preference is that many moral obligations appear to be intrinsic features of us.

Of course, the above arguments presuppose a particular picture of how natural law works. But I like that picture.

Epistemicism, vagueness and theism

Epistemicists say that our vague natural language is, in fact, fully sharp. If I place grains of sand onto a sheet of paper, there will eventually be a grain of sand such that prior to placing it, there was no heap, and after placing it, there was a heap. We don't know which grain it is, but we know there is one on the basis of the following argument. Let G_n be the sand after the nth grain has been placed. Then, G_1000000 is a heap, and G₁ is not a heap. It is a logical consequence of this that there is a number n, between 1 and 1000000, such that G_n is not a heap and G_n+1 is. And it's obvious that there is no number n which we know to be as above. So, epistemicism is true--there is a boundary, and plainly we don't know where it lies.

The above is a very plausible argument. But it runs into two kinds of problems. First, the incredulous stare: it just doesn't seem like there should be such an n. This has some force, but only if the alternative to epistemicism is something other than revising logic. Plus the epistemicist can give a good explanation of why we are mistaken here. We have a tendency, often exploited by anti-realists, especially in ethics and aesthetics, of confusing what we cannot know with what there is no fact about. Still, the incredulous stare does indeed have a pull on me here.

Second, there is this argument: Language is defined by our practices. Our practices underdetermine which number n is such that G_n fails to fall under the predicate "is a heap" but G_n+1 does fall under it. But something falls under the predicate "is a heap" if and only if it is a heap. Hence, there is no fact about which number n is such that G_n is not a heap but G_n+1 is. One might try to deny that language is defined by our practices or that our practices underdetermine the number n, but unless there is a theory of how language is defined in such a way as to determine the nmber n, this is intellectually unsatisfying.

Theism seems to make it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled epistemicist. For the theist can accept the following theory. God thinks perfectly precise thoughts with no vagueness of any sort. Our language comes to us from God. Just as my use of the words "Beijing" and "quark" get their meanings from other people's earlier use of it, so too our language ultimately gets its meaning from God's decision as to what should mean what. God thinks perfectly sharply, and then set perfectly sharp boundaries for human language's predicates. He didn't, in general, inform us as to the perfectly precise independent specifications of the boundaries. But our language is, nonetheless, perfectly precise.

There are two paths to further development. One path has it that each time our practices have seemingly created a new predicate, God was behind the creation. Jones hears an idea and says it is "cool". No one has used the word earlier in this sense, and the usage takes off. But, in fact, Jones didn't introduce the word by herself in to the language. God cooperated with Jones and filled out the vagueness in Jones' concept of the "cool".

The second path is that God defined precise rules by which bits of language gain meaning. These rules are every bit as precise and deterministic as the laws of Newtonian physics. These rules specify what exactly falls under the predicate "is cool" when the predicate is introduced by Jones in such-and-such a way under such-and-such circumstances.

Both paths further divide into two variants: a constitutive and a causal variant. On the constitutive variant, God's intentions as to what should mean what (specifically in each case, on the first path, and under more general descriptions, on the second) at least partly constitute what meaning-facts there are—that would be akin to divine command theory (in its divine-will variant). On the causal versions, God causes meaning-facts. These meaning-facts may be embedded in the natures of speakers—that would be a Natural Law version—or they may be "out there" (wherever "there" is). (I like the Natural Law version most.)

This gives us a cool argument:

1. (Premise) G₁ does not fall under "is a heap".
2. (Premise) G_1000000 does fall under "is a heap".
3. There is a number n such that G_n+1 falls under the predicate "is a heap" and G_n does not. (Follows by classical logic from 1 and 2)
4. (Premise) The best explanation of (3) is that human language was created by an agent whose thoughts suffer from no sort of vagueness.
5. (Premise) Every non-supernatural agent's thoughts suffer from some sort of vagueness.
6. Probably, there is a supernatural agent whose thoughts suffer from no sort of vagueness and who created human language. (Inductively from 3-5)

I am not endorsing epistemicism. I am still pulled to thinking the sentence-proposition relation is many-many and that classical logic governs propositions rather than sentences. But the above line of thought, and the comparison with Natural Law, makes epistemicism very attractive to me. If God, in creating human beings, can create them with a nature that grounds normative facts about them, he can create them with a nature that defines meanings as well. (Moreover, there may be a reduction of meaning to normativity. One might say that a type A of action is an asserting that p if and only if A ought not be done if not p. There are difficulties in this—it makes the notion of assertion very expansive—but it has its attractions.)

And I can't, off-hand, think of a credible Euthyphro problem here.

[Some minor refinements made from the initial post. -ARP]

The theistic theory of truth and the Euthyphro dilemma

Here is a theory of truth for propositions:

1. p is true if and only if God believes p.

And here is one for sentences:

2. s is true if and only if God believes what s says.

If traditional theism is correct, these theories of truth are necessarily extensionally correct. So what's wrong with them? In a post from last fall, I mentioned (2) but wasn't too happy with it. But now these theories seem rather good.

The standard tool for probing theistic analyses is the Euthyphro dilemma. Is p true because God believes it or does God believe it because it's true? But unlike in the case of the Euthyphro dilemma, I submit that there is no cost to taking the first horn.

Granted, it is initially tempting to say: "Surely, a knower's beliefs (at least in central cases[note 1]) reflect reality, and so (at least in central cases) God believes p because p is true." But this temptation should disappears once we see that in central cases of our knowing p, it is false that we believe p because p is true.

Here is a central case. Let p be the proposition that there is a computer in front of me. And let Bp be the proposition that I believe p. What explains why I believe that there is a computer in front of me is that there is a computer in front of me (and that it reflects and emits light to my eyes and puts pressure on my hands). Thus, p (partly) explains Bp. But observe that Tp, the proposition that p is true, does not explain Bp. Light reflects from the computer, not from the abstract proposition p. The proposition Tp is a second order proposition about p, and this second order proposition does not enter into the standard causal explanation of my believing p. It is the first order proposition p that does that.

The following seems correct: p explains Tp. It is true that there is a computer in front of me because there is a computer in front of me. Likewise, plausibly, God believes that there is a computer in front of me because there is a computer in front of me. Thus, Tp and the that God believes p have the same explanatory relation to p, and there does not appear to be any need to suppose that <God believes p> is explanatorily posterior to Tp, though in at least some cases there is reason to suppose that <God believes p> is explanatorily posterior to p. The Euthyphro dilemma, thus, is not an issue here. And the same goes for (2).

One could try to define truth as what God knows. But because truth may be a part of an analysis of knowledge, this could be circular in a way in which (1) and (2) don't seem to be.