In a previous post  I criticized David Brink’s argument that a divine command theory cannot vindicate the objectivity of morality. Brink argued:

[1] Our commitment to morality presupposes that moral requirements are objective

[2] Moral requirements are objective just in case facts about what is right or wrong obtain independently of the moral beliefs or attitudes of appraisers.

[3] If divine command metaethics is true, facts about right and wrong depend on the attitude of an appraiser.

In response, I noted two possible interpretations of appraiser independence: (a) a weaker sense, where moral facts obtain independently of the attitudes of any actual human appraisers.  Alternatively, (b) a stronger sense, where moral facts obtain independently of the attitudes of any appraiser whatsoever. I pressed a dilemma:  If we adopt the weaker understanding of appraiser independence, premise [3] is clearly false. By contrast, if we adopt the stronger interpretation, premise [3] is true, but. [1] is unmotivated. The presuppositions of moral do not commit us to this stronger conception of appraisal independence. We can account for the presuppositions of our moral practice equally well on the weaker interpretation. In a later post, I offered similar criticisms of an analogous argument by Elizabeth Tropman.

Michael Huemer anticipates this line of criticism. “[The divine command theorist] might say that morality is objective as long as it does not depend upon human observers; it can still depend upon non-human observers.” He responds:

I try not to spend too much time on semantic debates, so I will just say I think this would be an artificial way of drawing boundaries. Physical facts-the paradigm of objectivity- are not constitutively dependent on any observers whatsoever, they can exist by themselves. If one says that physical facts need some special observer, then one is conceding they are not objective facts in the robust sense that other observers are.[1]

Huemer refers to paradigmatic cases of objective and subjective facts.  Physical facts are paradigms of objective facts: “If there is a cat on the table, then that is true regardless of whether anyone believes it, or wants it to be true, and so on. The cat can be there with no one at all being aware of it.”[2]. By contrast, “funniness” is a paradigm of a subjective fact. “Whether a joke is funny depends on whether it would tend to amuse. People. Facts about, our reaction to the joke constitute its funniness”.[3] Huemer thinks his unrestricted sense of appraiser independence[4] uses the word “objective” in the same sense as it is used in paradigmatic cases. The restricted sense does not.

Prima facie, this is mistaken. If there is a cat on the table, that will be true whether or not any actual or hypothetical human being “believes it, or wants it to be true”. But that is not true if the observer in question is God.  After all, God creates and sustains all physical objects in being moment by moment according to his will. If God did not will the cat and table exist, neither would be there. Consequently, physical objects are not objective according to an unrestricted understanding of appraiser independence.

William Lane Craig raises this point in his response to Huemer.

[O]n theism physical facts are no more dependent on God’s attitudes than are moral facts-indeed being contingent, they are less so-for they depend upon God’s will to create the physical objects and preserve them in being. Observer-dependence, then, ought not to have reference to God, lest the distinction between “objective” and “subjective” collapse. Subjectivism is Huemer’s Pickwickian sense is no longer objectionable.[5]

Craig mentions a problem for any attempt to define objective facts as facts that obtain independently of all appraisers whatsoever. Because God is the creator and sustained of every contingent being in existence, This definition threatens to collapse the distinction between objective and subjective facts. Facts about anything distinct from God will be subjective facts. By this definition, moral facts will be subjective. However, so will the fundamental laws of physics, the fact that the world is round and numerous paradigmatic examples of objective facts. The word “subjective” will be used in an idiosyncratic way.

However, I think Huemer  may be able to avoid this implication. At one point, he defines objective morality in a way similar to Brink:” “there is “objective morality” provided that there are truths about what is good or bad, right or wrong, which obtain, independently of the attitude of observers toward the objects of evaluation”. When he argues that a divine command theory entails subjectivism, he is more precise:

“It [divine command meta-ethics] …is not an objectivist theory. If true it makes morality subjective, not objective. That is because [It] holds that morality constitutively depends on the attitudes of an observer. The observer in this case is a very interesting one-God- but an observer none the less”.[6]

Here Huemer, says an objective fact is a fact that fact does not constitutively” depend on the attitude of observers towards it. Huemer distinguishes between causal and constitutive independence. The funniness of a joke is a subjective fact, not because the joke causes us to be amused. Instead, our reacting with amusement constitutes its funniness. Funniness just is the tendency to amuse. Consequently, objective facts can depend on the attitude of observers, provided the dependence is causal and not constitutive.[7]

By emphasising constitutive instead of causal independence, Huemer may be able define objectivity as strong appraiser independence without collapsing the distinction between subjective and objective facts. Suppose the cat is on the table. This fact causally depends upon God’s attitudes, God’s willing that the cat exists it to exist. However, the cat is not reducible or constituted by God’s willing. The cat remains a distinct thing.  Hence it can be objective, despite its existence depending on God’s attitudes.

I said “may be”. This response may work with physical objects like cats and tables. It is less clear with another paradigmatic example of an objective fact—the fundamental laws of physics.  According to Peter Harrison, the idea of laws of nature was a theological concept developed by early modern scientists such as Descartes, Boyle, Newton, and various others.[1] Whereas Aristotle had explained regularities in nature in terms of intrinsic dispositional properties of natural objects, their nature or substantial form, these early modern thinkers understood regularities as imposed upon nature by God.  Laws of nature were laws God laid down which govern the physical world. Some contemporary philosophers, notably Alvin Plantinga[2] and John Foster[3], have defended this account of laws.

The details of their position do not concern us here. The issue is this. Imagine Descartes and others were correct, and laws of nature are just laws God laid down that govern nature. It would follow from Heumer’s definition that the laws of physics were “subjective facts” because they are constituted by the will of an observer: God. However, it is hard to see anything of substance that follows from this. This conclusion does not suggest that “we” made up the laws of physics. It does not suggest “they are not real”, or they are “social constructs”, or are useful “fictions”. It does not mean that they depend on us for their existence, so that if we ceased to exist, so would they. It does not follow they are not true really true, or that we cannot be mistaken about them, and so on. Everything that leads us to see the laws as hard objective facts would be untouched. By contrast, if we held that laws of physics were laws “we” made up and based on our decisions, that would radically undermine scientific realism.

I will return to this point later; for now, let us assume Huemer can avoid collapsing the distinction between objective and subjective in this way. His argument would be as follows:

[1] Our commitment to morality presupposes that moral requirements are objective. 

[2] Moral requirements are objective just in case there obtain facts about what is right and wrong that do not constitutionally depend upon the attitude of observers towards the objects of evaluation.

[3] If divine command metaethics is true, facts about right and wrong constitutively depend upon the attitudes of an observer towards the objects of evaluation.

I think there are two difficulties with this argument. If limit the kind of appraiser independence moral facts must display to “constitutional independence”. Then [3] and [1] are questionable. In my next post, I will spell out why I think this is the case in more detail.

[1] Michael Huemer “Groundless Morals”, A Debate on A Debate on God and Morality What is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties? Eds. Erik Wielenberg, William Land Craig and Adam Johnson (New York: Routledge, 2021) 150-151. Kindle

[2] Huemer, “Groundless Morals” 149

[3] Ibid, 150

[4] Huemer uses the word “observer independence” instead of “appraiser independence”, his reference to an observer’s attitudes towards “the object of evaluation”; however, suggests he is thinking of an appraiser. I will use both appraiser independence and observer independence interchangeably to describe Huemer’s view.

[5] William Lane Craig, “William Lane Craig’s Final Remarks”, A Debate on A Debate on God and Morality What is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties? Eds. Erik Wielenberg, William Land Craig and Adam Johnson (New York: Routledge, 2021) 196, Kindle

[6] Huemer, “Groundless Morals”, 150

[7] See chapter 1 of Michael Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) for the elaboration of this point.

[8] Peter Harrison “The Development of the Concept of a Law of Nature” Creation: Law and Probability ed Fraser Watts (Ashgate, 2008) 13-36

[9] Alvin Plantinga, “Law, Cause, and Occasionalism” Reason and Faith: Themes from Richard Swinburne, (Eds.) Michael Bergmann and Jeffrey E. Brower (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) 126-143.

[10] John Foster, The Divine Lawmaker: Lectures on Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 

Tags:   David Brink · Divine Command Theory · Elizabeth Tropman · Michael Huemer · Objectivism · William Lane CraigNo Comments