Scepticism about the possibility of truth for moral claims
So, your doubts about the sorts of moral claims that political philosophers make aren't grounded in scepticism about the point of making such claims or in scepticism about our authority to make such claims.
In that case, they probably stem from scepticism about the very possibility of true moral claims. And this despite the considerations that I gave earlier that seem to tell in favour of a presumption that true moral claims are possible.
At this point, I'm going to give you a list of the kinds of things that people say to explain why they're sceptical about the possibility of true moral claims. Click on any that seem plausible to you to see why I'm not inclined to accept them.
It's often true that when someone defends a moral claim, what she's defending is her opinion. But why should that mean that the opinion isn't true?
After all, it's my opinion that the earth isn't flat, and that 2+2=4, and that if all men are mortal and Socrates is a mortal, then Socrates is mortal. But of course these things are all true, too. So, it's no argument against moral realism to point out that moral claims express people's opinions. Of course they do! You need something better than this to back up scepticism about moral claims.
It's nothing more than your opinion ⇨
Why might you think that when someone makes a moral claim she's doing nothing more than giving an opinion? I can think of two reasons to think this.
First, you might be sceptical that any of us is ever in any kind of position to get at the truth of the matter, even though there is a truth. So, when I say "killing is wrong", for example, it might be true or it might be false, but in any case there's no way that any of us can find out. So, it's pointless, in a way, to analyse or argue about moral claims as we do in political philosophy. If that's your worry, click here.
On the other hand, you might think that there's simply nothing 'out there' for our moral claims to be about, any more than there's anything out there for our cries of pain to be about. If this is what you think, click here.
There's no such thing as objective truth ⇨
Sometimes people say that there's no such thing as the truth (or that there's no such thing as the Truth with a capital T).
Presumably, the view that there's no such thing as the truth (or the Truth) is just the same as the view that no claim (moral or otherwise) can be true. So, it would be false if at least some claims can be true.
Now, it seems strange to me to claim that no claims at all can be true, since that would mean, for example, that it's not true that you're reading this—and that it's not true that you're not reading this. Indeed, if, on the one hand, the claim that no claims can be true is true, then it's not true. And if, on the other hand, it's not true, then it's also not true. So, it looks as if anyone claiming that there's no truth isn't managing to say anything true. Things turn out to be much more complicated than they might at first seem.
There are, of course, deep philosophical questions about the nature of truth. I don't mean to dismiss those. But you'll have to do a lot more to justify scepticism about doing political philosophy than simply to assert that there's no such thing as the truth.
Moral claims are just expressions of our feelings ⇨
If this is your concern, you're in good philosophical company. There's a tradition in metaethics that's known as expressivism. Expressivists argue that moral claims are fundamentally expressions of our feelings.
Expressivism and other forms of what's known as 'non-cognitivism' aim to explain what's going on at the fundamental level when we make moral claims. But they don't typically say, in light of their explanations, that our practices of making and arguing about moral claims and behaving as if they can be true or false should simply stop. Just because those practices turn out not to be about moral facts that are 'out there' doesn't mean that there's something mistaken about engaging in those practices.
So, unless you can show that there's a reason to stop making and arguing about moral claims, then the mere fact (if it is one) that moral claims are expressions of feelings doesn't mean that we should stop engaging in this special feelings-expressing practice. (Presumably it has its point, just as other human practices do.)
Political philosophy, assumption of moral truth and all, is on this view one form of the special feelings-expressing practice. So, there's no reason to stop engaging in it any more than there's reason to stop engaging in the other forms. At the very least, more (and more sophisticated) argument is required.
Click here for a bit more on non-cognitivism and why I think that it doesn't pose a threat to the legitimacy of doing political philosophy.
Everyone just believes what they're brought up to believe ⇨
The first thing to note is that even if this is true, it doesn't mean that none of them can be right. And if some of them can be right, it seems a worthwhile exercise to find out which, and why. It's certainly not grounds in itself for scepticism about the possibility of true moral claims.
The second thing to note is that it simply isn't true that everyone believes what they're brought up believe. It may be that most people just believe what they're brought up to believe. But plenty don't. And those who come to change their views often do so after coming to see some fault in the moral reasoning or moral appreciation that they were brought up with.
Moral and political philosophy give us the tools to identify and appreciate good moral reasoning and so to assess the moral views that we're brought up with. They're not simply about making moral claims, but about defending them, examining the reasons for them. So, people who do moral and political philosophy are in a good position to improve their own moral reasoning, and to see the flaws in the moral reasoning of others. That seems to me an excellent reason not to be sceptical about moral and political philosophy.
Even if ultimately we'll come up against unresolvable conflicts in fundamental intuitions—intuitions that we come to have perhaps as a result of upbringing—it's still a valuable exercise, surely, to get clear about just what those intuitions these are, and to examine exactly where and how they conflict. And once again, that's what moral and political philosophy can do for us.
It's difficult to know exactly what people mean when they say this. It seems most likely that what they mean is one of the things above—that there's no objective truth of the matter when it comes to moral claims, or that people are just expressing their feelings, or that everyone just believes what they were brought up to believe, or all three at once. You can see above what I'd say in reply to these.
"Moral claims are relative" could also be an expression of a kind of cultural relativism, according to which the truth of a moral claim is determined by the standards of the culture in which the claim is made. Someone who accepts this kind of cultural relativism ought to have no problem with making moral claims in itself, since they can be true by the relevant standards. But she might say that we shouldn't make moral claims about what people from other cultures should do.
I think that this is a mistake. Suppose that my claim "It's wrong to kill" is true according to the standards of my culture. That doesn't show it becomes false or inapplicable when I'm talking about people from other cultures killing each other. The standards by which the truth of my claim is determined remain the standards of my culture regardless of whom my claim is about.
It's also worth noting that if the truth of a moral claim is determined by the standards of the culture in which the claim is made, then that's the case for the relativist's claim that we shouldn't make moral claims about what people from other cultures should do. If our culture's standards don't forbid moral claims about other cultures, as it's plausible to suppose they don't, then the relativist is wrong about this.
Perhaps you might say that the truth of a moral claim is determined not by the culture of the person making it, but by the culture of the person(s) about whom it's being made. But this seems crazy. It makes it too difficult for people to challenge cultural norms (even their own). For example: suppose that I say "You shouldn't beat your wife" to someone from a culture where wife-beating is taken to be acceptable. (That culture could also be my culture.) In that case, the culturally relative standard-shifting means that I'm clearly saying something false. But it shouldn't be clear that I'm saying something false!
Finally, to avoid confusion, we should distinguish between making moral claims and judgments about other cultures, and making non-moral claims and judgments about other culture's moral claims and judgments. The non-moral claim that people in other cultures don't believe that it's wrong to discriminate racially, for example, doesn't tell us anything about the moral claim that it's wrong of them to discriminate racially.
If none of this convinces you, perhaps your worry is about the imposition of our values on other people or cultures. In that case, click here.
If you're satisfied by these answers, then you'll understand why I assume that we can make and defend moral claims in political philosophy, and why, therefore, I cheerfully do so throughout the course.
If you're still not satisfied, click on the 'I'm still not satisfied' button below.