CONVENTIONALISM
Outline:
I. What makes a view conventionalist?
II.Three conventionalist theories
A. Divine Command Theory
B. Ethical Relativism
C. Existentialism (Sartre)
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What makes a view conventionalist?
- There are moral or ethical truths and these are made true
by someone’s say-so
- There is noting inherent in an action that makes it right or
wrong
- The essential ingredients in a convention are arbitrariness
and decision
Conventionalism is a substantive thesis - it says that
ethical facts are determined by someone’s say-so. It is not to be
confused with trivial semantic conventionalism because that
only describes an unimportant fact (it is generally about
language and the usage of words). SC states that ethical
propositions are made true or false by someone’s say so, not that
ethical terms may mean something else.
A.DIVINE COMMAND THEORY
- “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it
pious because it is loved by the gods?” (Euthyphro, 10a)
- Is an action morally obligatory because God commands us
to do it, or does God command us to do it because the
action is morally obligatory?
The DCT claims that it is God who sets what is right or
wrong, not the other way around. But either way, the theory
presumes that there is a god.
In the context of early Greece, there were many gods and
they are bent to disagree when it comes to the things they deem
as good or bad. This is where Socrates thought that DCT is
contradictory.
The monotheistic version of the DCT fares no better. It
poses two problems, plus another one:
1. Knowledge - how do we know what God wants us to do?
Do we correctly report what God commands?
2.If DCT were true, then anything that God says is will be
true, even if we deem it wrong. (this problem is rather
inconsistent though, since the fact that we deem
something wrong shows that there is a concept of
wrongness or rightness that is not dependent on God’s
say-so)
3.If the only thing that makes an action right or wrong is
god’s say-so, then God has no reason, and prior to
pronouncement there are no ethical facts, afterwards,
there are. This only goes to say that God makes arbitrary
decisions about what is to be an ethical fact. If it is
arbitrary, what then do we have as proof that these are
true? If we are to argue that God’s authority in making
what is right or wrong is a mysterious process, then there
is no reason to endorse this view since a theory whose the
process itself is not understandable.
B. ETHICAL RELATIVISM
- The rightness or wrongness of an action is settled by the
society’s say-so to which the actor belongs.
- What is right or wrong to do depends on or is relative to the
society in which you live.
- An action is right solely because the society said so.
Ethical Relativism is a normative thesis - it prescribes
how people should act, not merely a description of the situation.
To describe is to say that there are differences between societies’
customs and values, and this does not deductively imply how we
ought to live.
Ethical relativism goes beyond the uncontroversial fact
that what you ought to do depends on the situation you
are in. Ethical relativism goes beyond situation ethics (all
decisions are based on love--sometimes other moral principles
can be cast aside in certain situations if love is best served) since
it does not only refer to a specific situation in time and space,
but to the norms of the culture.
(Ethical) Imperialism - imposition of the one’s own
standards to other cultures (e.g. White man’s burden)
- this view is wrong for those who advocate
noninterventionalism (one society should not meddle with
another’s affairs) since each society gets to decide its own
ethical values, so they take refuge to ER but that should not
be so.
- ER does not really condemn this since it may be the case
that a society’s norm is to impose on another. It may also
be the case that it is “customary” to murder or oppress
particular members of the society. These things will be
justified since they are customary.
Ethical relativism does not imply that societies ought to respect
each other.
The kinds of objections made against DCT applies to ER too.
ER claims that conformism is always right - a person should
always conform to the norms of his or her society and if we think
these norms may be wrong, we are rejecting ER.
ER can claim a certain norm to be right but when the norm
changes, the moral fact also changes with it.
C. SARTRE’S EXISTENTIALISM
- individual human beings must freely create their own
moral values
2 Kinds of Existentialism:
1.Christian (Marcel, Jaspers) - weak
2.Atheistic (Heidegger, French existentialists) - more
coherent
Existence precedes essence - human beings are different
from artisan-created things like a paper-cutter since there was a
pre-conceived concept of it--a sort of an essence or purpose for
it--before it was realized in its production (in this way, essence
preceded existence). If there exists a God who created us then he
must be like an artisan, and human beings can be seen as
nothing but completions of a concept in the divine intelligence.
Sartre’s atheistic existentialism the holds that: “If God
does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence
precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by
any concept, and that this being is man, or as Heidegger says,
human reality.”
- man is nothing else but what he makes if himself: start with
subjectivity.
Subjectivity:
1.An individual chooses and makes himself.
2. It is impossible for man to transcend human subjectivity.
- when we choose to be something, we assume what we chose
to be good since we never really choose evil. When a man
chooses his own self, he also chooses for all men since our
choice of what we want to be reflects our idea of how and
what man ought to be. It follows from this that the good a
 CONVENTIONALISM
man chooses for himself is also chosen as good for everyone
else.

“I am responsible for myself and for everyone else. I am creating

a certain image of man of my own choosing. In choosing myself,
I chose man.”

Anguish - the feeling of total and deep responsibility

- the simple act done by one person implies that a
universal value is conferred upon the act. (what if
everybody did the act?)
- This must not lead to quietism or inaction since this
must be the very condition of our action--a choice
only has value because it is chosen
- Explained by a direct responsibility to the other men
whom it involves.
Forlornness - God does not exist and we have to face all the
consequences of this.
- if God does not exist, all possibilities of finding values
in a heaven of ideas disappear with him. (no a priori
good)
- There is nothing within nor without man that he can
cling to--man is freedom and is condemned to be free
(he did not create himself, he was thrown into the
world and he is responsible for everything he does)
- There is no support nor aid nor ideals to justify one’s
actions.
Despair - there is no final authority but ourselves to help us
choose rightly. We must choose without knowing the
consequences of our choice since we cannot know
what is beyond it. Yet we must remain responsible for
our actions and its consequences.
- “to choose or not to choose is a choice, so we must
choose”

“People stumble without reflection into stereotyped and

conventional ways of life without realizing that they in fact are
making a choice. Freedom is a frightening burden that we
must shoulder without kidding ourselves.”

Sartre’s general stress on the responsibility of individuals

to shape their own lives is important - there is no standard
that exists independently of his choice that determines what
should he want most of all.

In every choice we make, we have to create moral facts.

(example of the young man)

“If the young man decides that he wants above all to be a good
X, then it is morally permissible for him to do what it takes to be
a good X.”

There is no god to lay down a moral law, so we must lay down

the law for ourselves.

Sartre has no arguments against the realist question of why

there are no moral facts that can exist independently of anyone’s
say so.