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Morality exercises a deep and questionable influence on the way we live our lives. The influence is deep both because moral injunctions are embedded in our psyches long before we can reflect on their status and because even after we become reflective agents, the question of how we should live our lives among others is intimately bound up with the more general question of how we should live our lives: our stance toward morality and our conception of our lives as having significance are of a piece. The influence is questionable because morality pretends to a level of objectivity that it may not possess. Moral injunctions are meant to be binding on us in some way that is independent of the desires or preferences we may happen to have. When one asserts that a certain action is morally worthy or shameful one is, prime facie, doing more than merely expressing approval or disapproval or trying to get others to act as instruments of one's own will. If moral assertions were shown, at bottom, to be merely such exhortations, then they would be shown to wear a disguise. Morality would be revealed as pretending to an objectivity it does not have, and such a revelation could not but have a profound impact on our lives. It is doubtful that such a revelation could be kept locked up inside our studies.
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- Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 17: Objectivity and Cultural Divergence , March 1984 , pp. 135 - 170
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1984
References
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41 In this regard, note Adelaide's lament about Nathan Detroit: ‘For fourteen years I've tried to change Nathan. I've always thought how wonderful he would be if only he was different’ (Guys and Dolls, book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser).
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45 Here I am indebted to the students at UCLA who attended my seminar on transcendental idealism in the winter term, 1982; especially to Andrew Hsu.
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53 In this essay I shall ignore the important question of whether our moral concern should be even further extended to include other animals.
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59 It is beyond the scope of this paper to probe Hegel's specific arguments in detail, so I will simply note that while I find them extremely variable in quality, none are persuasive. The best argument is to the effect that the self-consciousness of a nation-state requires other autonomous states against which to define itself (cf. Philosophy of Right, §§ 321–324). This argument is clearly based on deep metaphysical principles regarding self-consciousness (cf. Phenomenology of Spirit, §§ 178–196), but I think that it is arguable that whatever truth there is in this thesis can be honoured by the diversity that would continue to exist within a world-community of societies. For there would not be one single homogeneous society, there would be a community of disparate societies. At worst, Hegel gives an appalling defence of war (cf. the Addition to § 324 of the Philosophy of Right) where he illegitimately identifies peace and stagnation. The opposite of stagnation is not war but organic life, and while this may require diversity, there is no argument to show that this diversity must be expressed in war.
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62 I have had the great pleasure of discussing the issues raised in this essay with John Dunn, Cynthia Farrar, Raymond Geuss, Norman Lear, Charles Parkin, Quentin Skinner, Timothy Smiley and Bernard Williams and I have learned from them all. This essay has been much improved by their criticisms of a previous draft. I am especially grateful to Bernard Williams, both for his personal generosity to me and because in contemporary work in this field, he has set the questions and the standards.