Moral judgment is the process of deciding what to do when faced with an ethical dilemma, including questions of right and wrong. Different philosophers have developed theories for criticizing right and wrong and the forces that drive people to decide what is wrong and right. These philosophers include David Humes, Alfred Jules Ayer, and John Mackie. David Humes is the author of the book, ‘An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,’ where he forms a basis of discussion on moral judgment. Both Ayer and Mackie borrow ideas from Hume’s perspective in their works of ethics, although they arrive at starkly different conclusions concerning moral judgment. This article aims to explain how Ayer and Mackie seem to follow Hume’s lead on the analysis of moral judgment but arrive at opposing conclusions.
In ancient Greece, some felt that morality stemmed from one’s emotions, while others held that it originated from one’s mind. In his book “Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,” Hume explains his thoughts on both sides. However, Hume concludes that sentiment rather than reason ultimately determines morality (Hume 160). According to Hume, the concept of right and wrong is highly relative and based on many emotions, including social empathy and the want for approval. Because exhibiting them leads to positive outcomes, including social acceptance and safety, personal fulfillment, a positive public image, and high esteem, certain traits are valuable.
Attractiveness is higher for those who are helpful, agreeable, and pleasing company than those who are hostile or opposed. Furthermore, Hume argues they are essential for contentment since knowing and caring that people have acted rightly brings happiness and satisfaction with people’s behavior and peace of mind. On the other hand, those who work immorally, are unjust, or are apathetic toward right and wrong will not.
Ayer appears to follow Hume’s lead on moral judgments since he holds on the same ground that reason cannot be sufficient to judge right and wrong because it is based on facts, but feelings evoke what is termed as good and evil. According to Ayer, every theory of ethics should examine the terminology used in moral debate (Ayer 239). Ayer argues that ethical judgments are not factual since they are expressions of emotion; therefore, they cannot be classified as either true or false (Ayer 232).
Since there were no objective moral facts, he reasoned, moral claims could not be tested and thus had no intellectual weight (Ayer 237). Ayer argues that moral assessments are more evaluative than descriptive and they are assertions of opinion rather than facts. Therefore, they cannot be accurate or incorrect; or, at the very least, they would be more transparent if they were not.
Ayer also borrows ideas and assumptions from Hume’s concept of motivation. Humes declares that moral distinctions motivate people to take action and that people cannot be moved to action by logic alone. One must feel some desire, objective, or want to take any action. Ayer argues that since moral “judgment” is linked to people’s motivation, and since motivation is linked to people’s emotions, it was only reasonable to interpret these moral utterances as serving the purpose of emoting (Ayer 238).
Ayer was careful to emphasize that his position was not synonymous with subjectivism, the idea that when people make moral claims, they are merely describing their emotions. If one takes the latter view, then moral claims are truth-evaluable, which is something Ayer’s moral emotivism rejects. It seemed to him later that expressing one’s emotions, whether happy or bad, also had a prescriptive element; by doing so, people encourage others to share their feelings and act appropriately. This demonstrates that the opinions voiced are generalizations about behaviors rather than criticisms of specific ones.
According to Mackie, there is no rational basis for trusting objective values or a unique capacity for moral judgment. Mackie agrees with Hume that beliefs are insufficient to generate behavior or only considers one alternative to Hume’s theory of motivation. Only the prospect that outlandish ideas, like moral intuitions, can inspire people to take action is considered by Mackie. Based on his moral error theory, Mackie argues that the existence of objective values would be strange or queer (Mackie 15). Both the “argument from queerness” and the “argument from relativity” are presented as supporting evidence for his thesis (Mackie 36-42).
The objective values include right and wrong, moral goodness, obligations, and duties. Nevertheless, he also extends his reasoning to include specific nonmoral values. Mackie argues that if there were such a thing as objective values, they would be utterly alien to everything else in the cosmos. However, neither the existence of such entities nor how people can learn about them is explained in a philosophically satisfactory way. For this reason, people ought to abandon the idea that there are such things as objectively reasonable values. Mackie agrees with Hume’s concept of experience by acknowledging that moral knowledge can serve as both a guide and an incentive; he also notes that anyone who became familiar with an objective good would want more of it, suggesting that this familiarity would be exciting and motivating. Without moral belief, it is unclear how moral information could inspire action.
From the above discussion, therefore, it is deductive that both Ayer and Mackie borrow some concepts of moral judgment from Hume’s works. Ayer and Mackie agree that motivation is a driving factor toward good and evil or right and wrong. It would appear that Ayer follows in the footsteps of Hume when it comes to making moral judgments, as Ayer shares Hume’s view that reason alone is insufficient to determine right and wrong because it is fact-based.
However, that emotions evoke what is often referred to as good and evil. Mackie also follows Hume’s lead when he argues, based on irreducible normativity, that the desires that people have that drive the actions taken to fulfill those desires but not the reason for pursuing a certain desire that drives someone towards a certain action. However, they both come to a different conclusion about right and wrong.
Markie argues that objective values do not exist, and if they do, it would be strange. He argues that it is through moral knowledge or experience that people’s actions are motivated and driven. On the contrary, Ayer concludes that there is right and wrong, good and evil, good morals, obligations, and duties which exist in society and describes what is expected to achieve happiness. Ayer further argues that moral assessments are more evaluative than descriptive, are expressions of opinion rather than assertions of fact and that it is more helpful to think of them as persuasive arguments than true or false claims.
Works Cited
Ayer, Alfred Jules. “On the Analysis of Moral Judgments.” Philosophical Essays. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1972. 231-249.
Hume, David. An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals: A Critical Edition. Vol. 4. Oxford University Press, 2006.
Mackie, John Leslie. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Penguin Books, 1977.