Which facts, if any, are moral facts?

Abstract: Facts are true states of affairs about the world. The facts that we most readily have access to are about our perceptual world, which can be identified with the physical world. This paper will ask if there any facts which can be understood as moral facts, as opposed to 'mere' physical facts. It traces a traditional Humean dichotomy between is and ought through the work of Iris Murdoch and Ronald Hepburn. They contrast two kinds of moral attitude, one fact-based, rational and behaviouristic, the other intuition-based, imaginative and focused on moral vision (Murdoch, 1956: 42). Drawing on Wittgenstein's conception of a rule as a custom (1953/2009: 87) rather than a strict, unbreakable law, it will be argued that these two attitudes can be reconciled to some extent. Rather than moral facts, there is a moral attitude of interpretation that can be taken towards natural facts. The facts of a matter apply strongly to moral judgement, but it is in the process of this judgement, rather than its precise outcome, where morality lies.

For the purposes of this essay I will define facts as true states of affairs about the world. What exactly these are, and how they relate to knowledge, is a question for another day. Under this definition, the facts that we most readily have access to are perceptual ones, now commonly understood to be facts about physical things. These are normally considered to be mere facts; that is, unladen with any values or moral baggage. From these, then, are we able to arrive at moral facts?

The difficulty of extrapolating the moral from the non-moral is discussed by Hume (1739) in his Treatise of Human Nature. We can make as many factual is claims about the universe as we like, but they will bring us no closer to arriving at an ought. This is due to the essentially different natures of the two; without some other premise or principle, there will never be any reason for a

natural law to lead us logically to a moral law. As the dominant modern view of the world is naturalistic, allowing only for the existence of physical and causally inter-related objects, the normative nature of morality puts it in a tricky position. If Hume is correct, then the purely descriptive investigation performed science and related naturalistic philosophies will never lead to prescriptive moral answers. Morality just does not fit into a fact-based view of the world, and it is for this reason that I think we should be looking elsewhere.

Under what Murdoch (1956) calls the current view of moral philosophy, morality is seen as a rational exercise in decision making, wherein the facts are weighed up and (hopefully) the right choice is made. If there are any moral facts in this picture of things, they are surely wrapped up tightly in the natural facts. Reason must be applied in light of the facts of the world, and it is only in relation to these that moral facts could have any meaning.

This understanding of morality, with its emphasis upon action, is inherently behaviouristic (in that it is concerned with externally observable behaviours). Whether deontological or consequentialist, what matters is what we do, and thus any recognition of the internal moral life is only through the lens of observable behaviour. It is these facts, of what we do, that are regarded as moral, although they are at the same time natural, and it is only in their judgement as right or wrong that they become moral. It is not clear then that these could seriously be considered moral facts, certainly not in any way independent to the natural facts.

Johnson (1988) argues that the current, in this case Kantian-derived, view revolves around working out which facts rationally apply to a moral situation. Any such moral system must supply a systematic exposition of rational rules governing morally correct human action (ibid: 265). Such a system becomes problematic however when one tries to apply it to a real moral situation. Even if

sometimes such problems are simple, and the facts of the matter point us towards an easy solution, there is no algorithm for weighing likenesses and differences between a hard case we are now considering and some apparently similar previous case where we have more confidence about what we ought to do. (ibid: 265) Johnsons point is that even if we can come up with systematic moral rules, the application of these rules will require an absolute understanding of the (non-moral) facts, something that we very often lack. It is here that he imagination becomes essential, something that he thinks even Kant recognised: What I have called the "problem of moral judgment" was well known to Kant (ibid: 266).

If we begin by assuming that there is at least some moral truth to be found, and accept that it cannot merely be deduced from natural facts, then what are we left with? Something like moral intuitions or understandings, and it is to these that we must look. It turns out that our natural understanding of morality is something very different to the approach traditionally taken by moral philosophy. As described by Hepburn and Murdoch (1956; 1956), a more intuitive understanding of morality does away with a strict ruling of right or wrong action in favour of the cultivation of what Murdoch calls moral visions and modes of understanding (ibid: 42). To her morality is a conceptual question of correctly framing a situation and a choice, not an analytic investigation into some a priori system.

Hepburn characterises this kind of moral consideration in the form of fables by which we understand and measure our lives. Contrary to a rationalistic and factual understanding of ones own biography, he thinks that we more realistically construct a kind of story through which we are able to coherently understand the messy business of existence. From this he derives the creative aspect of morality that the current view lacks. By recourse to both shared myths and more personal moral patterns we are able to assess situations and, by application of moral imagination, reach a right conclusion. This allows for the kind of ambiguity and uncertainty that are

characteristic of actual moral dilemmas, where it can sometimes not even be clear that there is a definite right or wrong action.

In Hepburns discussion of the proper use of rules in moral thinking (195: 27) we find something reminiscent of Wittgensteins conception of a rule as a custom (1953/2009: 87) rather than a strict, unbreakable law. A moral fable can be seen as the commendation of a universalisable programme for action in any similar case to the case cited (Hepburn 1956: 27); in other words, a point of reference to compares ones own situation to, in way of guidance rather than absolute authority. So Hepburns moral fables are to some degree still comparable to more traditional moral rules. What he wishes to say is that the manner in which rule-following has been emphasises is misplaced, and that more room must be made for imagination and creativity in moral understanding.

Murdoch (1956) further distinguishes this position from the logical approach of the current view (in which she includes everyone from Hume, through Kant, to Mill). She divorces it entirely from any definite philosophical model; instead moral vision should be constituted by ideas which are consciously entertained as an aid to, or as a part of, morality (ibid: 33). She regards our assessment of a situation as something moral in and of itself, and thinks that this area has not been sufficiently explored. I believe that this fits well with the idea of morality as a response to natural facts, not moral facts in and of themselves. As she says, moral differences look less like differences of choice, given the same facts, and more like differences of vision (ibid: 40). Whereas Hepburn still considers the moment of choice as the focus of morality, Murdoch wishes to go further. Vision and choice are inseparable, and to ignore the former is to greatly limit our understanding of morality. However it is important to emphasise that neither Hepburn nor Murdoch deny that the conventional philosophical models of morality have some role to play. Murdoch wished to deny

the claim of the current view to picture morality as such. The current view pictures a type of morality (ibid: 57). Her goal is to expose these models for what they: not an absolute ethical truth but merely one of many routes that may considered on the ethical journey.

A similar solution is to emphasise the role of what Bowden (1998) calls ethical attention. By this she means something like a subtle and multifaceted understanding of the situation one finds oneself in, as opposed to the more rigid understanding of our perception of moral facts given by the current view. This recognition of the complexity of moral problems is what sets apart this position from that of traditional moral theories. For her the task of ethical attentiveness is continuous, indeterminate and never complete (ibid: 74). This echoes the complex nature of real moral situations that Johnson highlights, and calls for a deeper understanding of how we come to moral choices. Again, it is the process of coming to these choices that carries much of the moral weight not, as is traditionally assumed, the eventual act itself.

For Bowden (1998: 65), Murdochs understanding of attention remains dependent on an appeal to a detached, intellectual sensibility. This appeal stems from Murdochs Platonic background; there is a sense in which moral understanding involves the rediscovery of something hidden from us. Perhaps naturally then Bowden turns to the Aristotelian-inspired Nussbaum who understands ethical perception not in terms of the pursuit of an already sensed, if unknown, unity of perfection and truth, but rather in terms of the responsive participation of whole, thinking, feeling, sensing persons in moral life (ibid: 66).

Nussbaum (1985: 516) investigates how moral imagination is in some manner like the work of the creative imagination, comparing passages from Henry James The Golden Bowl with our own moral intuitions. Her point, as well as James, is that the paradigmatic situations portrayed in

literature (and film!) are far more complex and real than the kinds of examples used by conventional philosophy. Whilst they may never precisely reflect our moral experience, they do reflect the essence of it, and in so doing can provide a pattern by which to assess our own situation.

It is this approach to morality, rather than the particular applicability of literature, that I wish to emphasise. All of the writers that I have discussed are aiming this way: towards a form of moral understanding that takes into account more than just a bare assessment of facts followed by a definite action. Instead what is important is the overall picture, not least how it is perceived by the moral actor. How he eventually acts may have some significance, but what is far more important is the process that leads him to come to this action. Morality, I would like to say, is not in itself factbased, but centres on a suitably thorough, imaginative and serious weighing up of the situation that one finds oneself in.

One criticism of this approach is that it might risk removing human agency, and by extension any moral responsibility. If our subjective perception of a situation is what gives it moral weight, not how we choose to act, then there is a sense in which we are no longer in control. Our moral vision will be influenced by all manner of external events and experiences, and thus we end up merely reacting to what we perceive, instead of rationally sifting through facts and coming to the correct conclusion.

However, if pushed to the same extremes, it is not at clear that the current view fares any better. Under this conventional analysis there is a definite right or wrong choice to be made in any situation, and acting morally is merely a matter of applying ones rationality in the correct manner. But if to act in any way but the moral one is irrational, then in what sense is our agent free to choose? Of course he could choose to act immorally, but if he was truly in possession of all the

facts, would he do so? Under most accounts at least it does not seem that he would. Indeed, by shifting moral weight to the process of deliberation, removing it at least partially from the final act itself, we open up the possibilities of multiple right actions, depending upon on precisely how they were arrived at. Moral assessment becomes a matter of imagination and vision rather than crude and unrealistic calculation.

There is then no such thing as a moral fact, but rather a moral attitude of interpretation that can be taken towards natural facts. There is no denying that the facts of a matter apply strongly to moral judgement, but it is in the process of this judgement, rather than its precise outcome, where morality lies.

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