Touchy Subjects

Why is Morality or Knowledge Impossible?

I have been trying to understand the idea that Thymos phrased, Does morality exist?” or, in another way, “Is morality Possible?” In order to do that I have imagined we are several people gathered together discussing what to do with our last sandwich. It’s an important discussion because we are all hungry. When we are through with our talk, then we will do whatever we need to do. I want to say we will then know what to do.

That is, our decision about what to do with the sandwich is based on what we know and what we value. I have gone on and on trying to talk about what I take to be Socrates’ account of knowledge and values. Part of what I mean when I talk about his account is about examples like this one about the last sandwich. However, the account Socrates holds is surprising. It might seem to be the one that I have so far outlined where people get together and discuss what they should do about some scarce commodity. I do not believe this would be an accurate account, although, it may be what we would want to believe he advocated.

I spoke about Thrasymachus and how he suggested what really happens in these kinds of situations is that some guy who’s been hanging out in the shadows comes up during the dispute and pulls a gun. He pulls a gun and steals the sandwich for his own purposes. According to Thrasymachus, it’s thugs like this who have the power to steal what they need who determine what people will understand by “justice.” If the thugs can steal the last sandwich from hungry people, they can also make them think it’s justice.

Socrates has a reputation to uphold. It would be slander to say that Socrates actually agreed with Thrasymachus about the powerful. That would be to make Socrates out to be an ally of his friends the tyrants, when most believe he was only interested in doing philosophy and watching the world go by. However, it would not be slander if I could show that Socrates truly agreed with the claims Thrasymachus made.

I think Socrates rejected the idea that we should be resolving questions like what to do with scarce commodities by encouraging everyone involved to make their case. Instead, like Thrasymachus he sided with the thug who pulled the gun. He thought that it was true that thugs were able to steal what they needed and when they had the power could dictate what people subsequently considered justice.

People may think that far from being an ally of Thrasymachus and his lot Socrates argued against their position. Socrates rails against Thrasymachus in the first book of the Republic. Thrasymachus enters the argument wild eyed and restless to prove his point, but leaves cowed with his tail between his legs.

It would take some heavy duty arguing to show that Socrates and Thrasymachus actually agreed. However, some of this work needs to be done to show how Socrates can seem to oppose Thrasymachus and yet come up with a view that claims we do not know what we think we know, because we do not understand what the terms we use to speak mean, or the claim that our lives are like those who live in the cave in his Allegory.

One part of this work is to argue that Thrasymachus is just a stalking horse for Socrates. Thrasymachus says all the things that we should reasonably oppose about how the powerful determine justice and all. Where Socrates argues against Thrasymachus, he thus makes it seem that he opposes what Thrasymachus claims about the powerful. All he really opposes is the way Thrasymachus puts his argument as an advocate of rhetoric. Rhetoric is said to be one of Socrates’ major targets. Instead of rejecting the doctrine that the powerful determine justice, rejects the rhetorical argumentation that Thrasymachus used to explain his position.

I will only suggest here that Thrasymachus as well as Glaucon are weak when, though they are concerned to promote an account of justice, they typically fail to provide any supporting arguments for their claims. They put up a good front, but never engage in follow through. Their strategy is to provide alternative positions to their opponent’s, “but it could be this, or it most likely is some other way, while avoiding altogether providing any kind of supportive argument for their own claims. There would usually be no way that an opponent could effectively resist a rhetorician’s position so long as there were never any reasons supporting their positions on any issue. It may be possible to stonewall an argument so long that the rhetorician’s opponents have to give up and move on, leaving the rhetorician holding the field of battle, so to speak.

Socrates accepted the claim that Thrasymachus made, but instead of explaining it in rhetorical terms, he supported it as a matter of logical argument.

In order to explain this claim, I want to return to my sandwich example. I want to contrast two ways of determining what to do with the last sandwich. On the one hand, I want to talk about how we all were involved in determining what would be done with the sandwich given we were all hungry and it was the last sandwich. The importance of doing it this way was to resolve our conflict without resorting to force, to make sure there would be no unmet objections, so that when the decision was made, and there was no more sandwich, no one would be able to then say that the decision process was unfair. When we decide what to do we want it to be because we know what to do, and not just jump to a decision without dealing with all the issues involved.

On the other hand, I will talk about how the thug lurking in the shadows came up with a gun and stole the sandwich from the rest of us. One can imagine that such a person was also hungry and because he kept away from the rest of us suspected that he would not get any fair share of the sandwich when the decision what to do was made. He might be afraid that he’d get no sandwich and pretty much starve. He might be staying away from the rest of us because he thought, perhaps, that we had something against him, or maybe he imagined he had something against the rest of us. For whatever reason, he thought his own best option was to look after himself. His own purpose in life was to survive and the most reliable way of doing that was to use the gun in his pocket and take the sandwich from the rest of us.

Now, I maintain that one can think of deciding what to do with the sandwich in two fundamental ways. I want to rely on the little bit of jargon that I’ve developed to think about my argument. There is the first way, where we listen to everyone’s view. I want to say that there, knowledge and values are matters of not just rhetorical argument, where one is concerned for oneself and uses the fact that there are alternative positions on any question to support one’s own position, or not just logical argument, where one is only concerned with whether one’s own claims are supported by one’s own arguments. They are not matters of just one or the other, but are matters of both thought of together. In other words, knowledge and values, what we base our decisions on, are on this view matters of argument where one considers both the fact that there are alternative points of view to any issue, and that there are good or bad reasons in support of any position.

Thrasymachus promotes the view that questions about what to do with the last sandwich, for example, are typically decided by thugs using guns. He supports this claim as a rhetorician would, with the presentation of his views and a lot of alternative takes on it, but without any effort to back up his claim with any support. This characterization of both Thrasymachus and Glaucon goes along with the fact that Thrasymachus changes the statement of his view, without getting anywhere against Socrates, and though Glaucon stays with his statement of fewer options, is forced to listen to Socrates lecturing him throughout the next thousand books of the Republic without being able to put up much resistance.

Socrates remains a covert advocate of the claim that might makes right, even though he argues against Thrasymachus and Glaucon who advocate overtly for such a view. We can see this is true because it’s Socrates who advocates the Allegory of the Cave, promotes the scheme to create and rely on the Guardians, and makes people out to be skeptics and nihilists based on commitment to his own view. All of these philosophical doctrines are implications of the view promoted by Socrates himself, that knowledge and values are matters of logical argument alone.

Glaucon tells us about the myth of Gyges. This is the story of a shepherd who finds a ring of incredible power. It makes the one who wears it invisible. Using the ring, Gyges goes down to the city, seduces the Queen, kills the King, and rules his country ruthlessly from then on.

He concludes his story with the following moral:

Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.

The argument here is that Gyges does not consider any objections to his self serving efforts. He doesn’t consider, for example, anyone pleading for mercy for the lives of the King, or the honor of the Queen. He doesn’t listen to anyone arguing that what he is doing for himself is not in the interest of the people of the country he has taken over. He does not listen to the claim that he is a criminal and that his actions will lead to the destruction of himself and to his country.

He does not listen to these criticisms because, as he Glaucon argues, to do so would be irrational. You would be an idiot for not taking what you could to preserve oneself.

For the thug with the gun, not using the gun to take the last sandwich would be irrational. He was not participating in the argument and so could not expect to benefit from the process of deciding what to do with the sandwich. So, in order to survive, his best most reasonable option was to ignore the interests of others and take the sandwich.

Socrates tells us a story about the Allegory of the cave. Our lives are like those who live in such a cave. He goes on to explain how we should understand the differences between the opinions and prejudices that we have, based on our experience of shadows, and knowledge and values which would be based on the experience of reality, or the fact that the shadows are produced by objects being carried in front of the fires.

One of the big pieces of arguing I must do is show how Socrates’ Allegory is based on Glaucon’s myth of Gyges. In making this argument, I would be showing that Socrates covertly agrees with Thrasymachus and Glaucon that the powerful ultimately decide questions of knowledge and value.

I pointed out that if Gyges, or the thug with the gun, were powerful enough to take over the country, or steal the last sandwich, then they would be powerful enough to make people say that what they did was just. In other words, they would be powerful enough to force people to reject any notion that might challenge the powerful. It is Socrates’ innovation to argue that knowledge and values are just understood as matters of logical argument, in other words, the practice of making any consideration of another point of view irrelevant.

One of the characteristics of logic, as opposed to rhetoric, is that logical arguments are not about any kind of issues or controversies in the way of rhetorical arguments. So, where one rhetorical argument can be compared to another because they are about some controversy, logical arguments cannot be compared or contrasted in the same way. Logical arguments are about whether their conclusions follow from their supporting arguments as a matter of form. For example, in the logical argument, “If p, then q. P is true, therefore q is true,” the question is whether the conclusion “q is true” follows from its premises “If p, then q” and “p is true.” There is no way in logic to consider how this argument is related to some other argument.

It is when Socrates claims knowledge and values are in principle matters of logical argument that the irrelevance of comparison makes both impossible. The Allegory shows this by demonstrating that each persons understanding of the world would be independent of every other person’s because their experience of the world is different. This solipsism does not depend on everybody experiencing different things, as in different shadows, but on the fact that knowledge and values for each person is a matter of logical arguments that themselves cannot be compared or contrasted.

It is just such a world that makes knowledge and values impossible. We should not be surprised that an account of knowledge and values based on the idea that decisions about what to do about, for example, the last sandwich, are determined by thugs with weapons should imply that both would be impossible.

The question, then, is if we are considering such an account of knowledge and values, what the Allegory of the cave would have to do with it. The Allegory is offered by Socrates, in defense of his own commitment to the idea that the powerful determine justice, for instance, as a way of excusing or justifying such a view. It’s a bribe.

Socrates is saying his audience should accept the view that he thinks is in the interest of thugs with weapons because it will offer the prospect of valuable prizes. If only his audience will go along with the thugs and agree that knowledge and values are matters of logical argument, then the Allegory tells them that the world is about a conflict between a good cop and a bad cop. Our misery with the powerful in this world is caused by the influence of a bad cop. Call him Satan. But there is a good cop who will save us from the bad cop. Call the good cop God. In reward for doing whatever the good cop wants, he will reward you with another life after you’re done with this one, and he will intercede in this life on your behalf.

The Allegory works as a bribe because in order to get his audience to accept his account of knowledge and values as a matter of logical argument he promises you life after death and the salvation of your loved ones from suffering. It works because it is the Socratic account of knowledge and values as logic which makes the Allegory, or some similar metaphor, necessary for one to imagine that people would commit themselves to such a monstrosity.

I like the story of the Trojan Horse because it describes so well the position Socrates has put us all in. He offers us a certain picture of how the world could be, complete with an account of how the world is a matter of suffering, and the existence of a loving God who, along with his sidekick the Socratic Hero, is available to save us from this vale of tears. It is this offering that people respond to when they commit themselves to the idea that reality is, in fact, a matter of the Allegory of the Cave. The story of Troy is a cautionary tale about what happens when one commits oneself to something like a religious icon, like Socratic principles or the Socratic hero, or a woman, as in Helen, without being curious enough to investigate what such commitments entail. In the case of the Allegory, it commits one to what the thug did to steal the sandwich. The Allegory involves the thug stealing the sandwich just as sure as the Trojan Horse held little angry Greeks who were bound and determined to destroy Troy and all it stood for.

I began this post by mentioning the idea that Morality doesn’t exist. I wanted to say that this wasn’t just an idea. It is true so long as people draw guns to steal what they need to survive. The act of engaging in force makes argument, and hence morality impossible. I wanted to include our consideration of knowledge in this argument. If the point of an argument is to come up with knowledge, as I think it is, then if one makes arguing productively impossible, as one does with a gun in the face, then knowledge would be impossible too. I have tried to indicate why there is a connection between force and skepticism or nihilism, the ideas that knowledge and morality are impossible and so do not exist. This connection was utilized by Socrates to get his audience to go along with the powerful despite the fact that doing so was against his audiences’ interests.

Why should we be moral if the powerful get all the goodies?

Keith Parsons tells us:

“Why be moral?” was basically the question Thrasymachus put to Socrates. According to Thrasymachus, the ideal life would be to have a reputation for perfect justice while being completely unjust. That way you could enjoy all the advantages of injustice while basking in the glow of a good reputation. Socrates had to show that it would be better to be perfectly just even at the price of being thought unjust. Of course, the Christian could say that the unjust man will face judgment in the hereafter, and that this is a reason to be just. However, this misses the point. The question “Why be moral?” is not asking for a prudential consideration. It poses the metaethical question “What is the source or ground of moral obligation?” In other words, why ought we to do anything?

I have read this paragraph and have wondered whether I understand or agree with what Parsons says here about the question “Why be moral?” I want to recall the scenario that I outlined in my last post. We are discussing how to divide up our last sandwich. Everyone is hungry. Maybe one or two of us could go awhile longer without something to eat. But there are several of us. There is only one sandwich. The process of discussion involves getting everyone to buy into the discussion. We want to do that so that after we’ve made a decision about why to do no one can complain that they weren’t consulted, or that they meant to raise some important concerns that were not addressed. We want everyone to be satisfied we’ve done our best considering our situation.

Someone might ask, of course, why we have gone to the trouble of discussing what to do with the sandwich. I take it this is just the question “Why be moral?” They might ask because someone might think these questions should just be answered by the guy with the gun sitting in the corner. I would then explain that it’s important to resolve our conflict about what to do with our last sandwich by getting everyone involved and everyone to have something invested in our process. If they get their concerns met, then they would have no reason to be disappointed in whatever we end up doing.

I wanted to be clear about what Parsons meant by “prudential.” I find it means:

1.Arising from or characterized by prudence. 2.Exercising prudence, good judgment, or common sense.

When I look at my example, I see that one could easily ask about the prudential considerations. I want to be moral because I don’t want anyone to have strong objections to what we’ve done during or afterward that might make resolving our situation difficult or impossible. This would make being moral an exercise in good sense.

However, Parsons thinks Thrasymachus had something else in mind. He wanted to raise the question, “What is the source or ground of moral obligation?” I have to confess a certain amount of puzzlement about what Parsons says about Thrasymachus here.

I want to have Parsons hold up a bit and explain to me why he wants to say that Thrasymachus is talking about “moral obligation.” In my example involving our last sandwich I explain we are interested in having everyone in on the discussion about what to do because we don’t want to drag out the dispute with people complaining that their interests weren’t addressed. We didn’t want people to feel the sandwich was distributed unfairly. Now, we had no obligation to discuss what we were going to do. It seemed to make good sense to do it the way we did. When I hear that we may have been “obligated” to do whatever we did, I get the feeling we wouldn’t do what we did unless we were forced by our obligations. I look up “obligation” and find:

1. The act of obligating.

2. That which obligates or constrains; the binding power of a promise, contract, oath, or vow, or of law; that which constitutes legal or moral duty.

A tender conscience is a stronger obligation than a prison. --Fuller.

3. Any act by which a person becomes bound to do something to or for another, or to forbear something; external duties imposed by law, promise, or contract, by the relations of society, or by courtesy, kindness, etc.

Every man has obligations which belong to his station. Duties extend beyond obligation, and direct the affections, desires, and intentions, as well as the actions. --Whewell.

4. The state of being obligated or bound; the state of being indebted for an act of favor or kindness; as, to place others under obligations to one.

5. (Law) A bond with a condition annexed, and a penalty for non fulfillment. In a larger sense, it is an acknowledgment of a duty to pay a certain sum or do a certain things.

I don’t think it’s correct to tell us we are bound by others, by some external body, when it was our decision to do what we did because it made the best sense to us.

I want to reject Parson’s way of characterizing Thrasymachus here because it sounds like it’s not what he was doing at all. After all, the question for us when reading Socrates is what he is up to, not what moral theory made up by some other philosopher can we use to explain what he or his interlocutors are doing.

When Thrasymachus tells Socrates that he thinks powerful people do more to determine knowledge and values, and especially justice, than moral considerations, he is offering to dispute my claim that what we did to distribute the sandwich was important. What he’s saying is that when the guy with the gun sitting in the corner finally points it at us and threatens to kill us if not harm us if we don’t give him the sandwich, we see the truth that force is more powerful than words and the arguments we make with them. The guy with the weapon demonstrates the truth of his claim that the powerful determine justice.

Thrasymachus was a character in the Republic who argued wildly against Socrates. He’s characterized as follows:

In the first book of the Republic, Thrasymachus attacks Socrates' position that justice is an important good. He claims that 'injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice' (344c). In the course of arguing for this conclusion, Thrasymachus makes three central claims about justice.

1.Justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger (338c)

2.Justice is obedience to laws (339b)

3.Justice is nothing but the advantage of another (343c).

It’s possible that he’s just saying that the distribution of the sandwich will be ultimately decided by people like the guy with the gun. Whatever he does will be called “justice.” If he can make people give up the last sandwich, he can make them call what happened “justice.”

I want to say that Thrasymachus is also telling us it makes good sense for the guy with the gun to take what he needs to survive by force. From his point of view, he may not get enough of the sandwich, or any of it at all, and so robbery would be the only way for him to survive.

If the question is what makes the most sense, then the further question we should be asking is what goals are we shooting for and what would make the most sense is determined by what would allow us to meet those goals.

The example I’ve sketched out here raises a few questions. Yes, Thrasymachus could be asking of Socrates, “Why be moral?” But I want to here suggest what Thrasymachus is arguing. Let’s look at this paraphrase:

"--- Justice is nothing more than whatever is advantageous to the stronger.--

"---some nations are ruled by tyrants, others are ruled by a democratic majority, and still others are ruled by a small aristocracy. . . . Whoever rules-the ruling party-is the stronger in each nation . . . . And in each nation, whoever rules passes the laws that are to their own-the rulers' advantage. After they pass these laws, they say that justice is obeying the law. Whoever fails to keep the law is punished as unjust and a lawbreaker. So that . . . is what I say justice is. Justice is the same in all nations: whatever is to the advantage of the ruling group. The ruling group --- is the stronger. So --- everywhere justice is the same: it is whatever is advantageous to the stronger."

One’s ideal life would seem to be as one of the “stronger” who are able to pass laws that are to their own advantage. It’s these people who enjoy the advantages of injustice while maintaining a good reputation. The question for Thrasymachus would then be why one should want to go through the process my group went through of involving everyone and having everyone with an opinion have their say in order to decide what we’d do with our last sandwich. Thrasymachus is just saying such effort is futile because if that sandwich would be that important to the strong and powerful they’ll use their power and ability to pass laws to obtain the sandwich for themselves.

Why be moral and lose out when one can reject morality and obtain the advantages of thievery and intimidation? This seems a more accurate reading of Thrasymachus’s question. It takes into consideration what he says about the powerful and their ability to undermine the exercise of moral argumentation.

What is lost if we have no morality?

It occurs to me that we should wonder what's at stake if we have no morality.

I have been thinking about the dangerous idea that there may be no morality. It is supposedly only an idea because it's not true. It's not true because, well, not enough people have read Nietzsche,  people who have read him are not all that impressed, people who did read him and were impressed failed to convince or destroy the rest of us...

I want to say that it's not just an idea. As long as people believe swords are more powerful than words in the pursuit of life's goals morality will not exist. That is, if we're carrying on a conversation...say we're trying to decide how to divvy up the last sandwich, we are committed to argumentation to resolve our conflicts. However, when someone comes in and pulls a gun, or a knife, and threatens us in order to steal our sandwich, then that person has made argument, and therefore morality that depends on argument, impossible.

If we don't have morality it seems we could not resolve conflicts equitably. Sandwiches would get divvied up not out of the agreements we'd be making. It would be those with the guns and knives who would decide who gets what.

Without morality, might will make right, so to speak.

Response to a Letter, "What about the claim that morality does not Exist?"

I'm wanting to respond to a recent post on "Thymos - Philosophy, Art and Gung-Fu. " The writer suggested that the most dangerous idea in science is the claim: "Morality does not exist." It's a good question to consider. My response to that letter goes like this:

Your letter raises some interesting questions. I'd like to ask a few of my own.

First, it seems your "dangerous" idea wouldn't be the kind of idea that the editors of such a journal would be looking for. They seem to want scientific ideas and your question, like the questions, "Does God exist," "Does knowledge exist," or "Do other minds exist," are philosophical and not scientific. I think they're going to wonder how some experimental data is going to answer your question, and see that none would.

Questions about the nature or existence of things like morality, knowledge, God, and so forth are just not science.

You say your idea is: Morality does not exist. Then, you try to explain what you mean by this claim. You say: "There is no justifiable basis for any moral adjudication in any sense. Any action is as right or wrong as any other and no one can tell you otherwise and be speaking the truth."

Even though you tried here to be clearer about your meaning, I still have questions about what you mean. I have this question because there are several possible explanations for why there is no justifiable basis for these moral decisions.

I take it that Socrates provided a response to your question. Instead of agreeing to the claim that morality was impossible, or did not therefore exist, he argued that there were objective standards by which "moral adjudications" could be justified. He says such standards are matters of the "forms."

There have been several difficulties rising from this kind of response. Some may argue that there are no such standards. Some may argue that there may be such standards, but we cannot know them. Others  may argue that though there are standards, and we can know them, we are unable to communicate what we know to anyone. That is, we cannot convince others that what we say about these standards is true. The Socratic response is that morality is not impossible, it just has certain difficulties.

Are you saying that morality is impossible? Or, are you saying that morality isn't impossible, but that it does not exist at the present time because we have not yet figured out how to overcome any of these Socratic difficulties?

I have a problem with the way you are so sure that your idea about morality is true. You say it is true, "...beyond a shadow of a doubt." However, I do not understand what evidence or argument you've provided to show that it is true.

Is your evidence the idea that when people try to justify their moral decision they always appeal to their own  preferences? Would you then say that morality cannot be based on preferences, and hence, morality does not exist.

This would seem to be the way that Socrates would think about it.

When you offered the idea that "morality" did not exist I was curious why you, instead, didn't offer the idea that "knowledge" did not exist. It would seem that scientists would be much more concerned about knowledge as the goal of scientific research, than morality. I think there is just as long a tradition of skepticism about knowledge as morality.

When you started talking about Nietzsche I got confused. You said he "unleashed" a terrible truth. You summed up the predicament we're in by saying, "When the majority of people actually believe this and it comes to its fullest extent, no one will be safe."

You here suggest that if Nietzsche didn't do any unleashing or if people refuse to believe what he said, then everything will be alright and folks will be safe. It's as though your claim about morality would not be true if someone like Nietzsche didn't point it out. That sounds absurd to me.

If morality exists or not it would seem to be the kind of situation that would be true whether or not Nietzsche said anything about it. I'd think he should be understood as just pointing out some uncomfortable truths. The challenge he makes would not be something anyone could meet by not believing him. Your argument suggests we could be saved from this idea if we just burned Nietzsche's books and silenced anyone who could talk about them.

From what you say I suspect you think that your idea is dangerous in the sense that if people believed it they would act differently. They would then act according to the precept that might makes right, or some such variation. That is, I don't think you believe it is true because you think it's important that now people don't agree with this idea.

To that I wonder why you think the truth of this claim, that morality does not exist, depends on people believing it or agreeing with it?

Personally, I think that Nietzsche is a johnny-come-lately to the issue of nihilism. What's more, I suspect he's just an observer. Socrates provided a much more important argument. It is his argument that makes morality impossible. He not only responded to the claim that morality was impossible, he provided the argument which concludes that way. It is an argument to which we are already committed. His argument is like the Trojan Horse. It has it's outward virtues, but includes within it little soldier arguments which will appear when you least expect it and destroy everything you hold dear. This argument offers us the allegory of the cave, and other such metaphors, as more acceptable fictions with which we delude ourselves into ignoring the implications of what we've done.

I put it to you that it doesn't take Nietzsche to make us nihilists as nihilism has been civilization's prevailing position for a long time.