Notes for 4/15/2026

4/15/2026
[Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")]
[Bioethics Club: Mondays from 5:30pm-6:30pm in Leigh Hall 408]

Is it ok to lie to protect someone’s feelings?
 
Plato: Knowledge, including ethical knowledge, is a function of reason.
Perception/sensation belongs to the body.
Reason belongs to the soul.

Empiricism: David Hume
 
Ethical subjectivism is the view that the truth of ethical judgments is subjective.


Arguments FOR ethical subjectivism:

There are two main arguments for ethical subjectivism.

The first derives from the question of how anyone could ever KNOW whether or not ethical judgments are true.

Consider: “It was wrong for Eric to murder Bob.”

How could anyone ever know this was true?

David Hume approached this question from his empiricism. Do we perceive the wrongness of killing Bob through the senses? (No.) Is killing Bob wrong by definition? (No.) Then what is the basis of the judgment?



Hume’s answer is that judgments of right/wrong must be grounded in our FEELINGS.

This completely overturns Plato’s elevation of reason above feelings. For Hume, “Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.”
(Roughly: Reason is a tool to help satisfy desires.)

1.    Ethics is based on feelings.
2.    Feelings are subjective.
3.    Therefore, ethics is subjective.

However, Hume was actually not a subjectivist. (I’ll explain how later.)

The 2nd main argument for subjectivism is the argument from disagreement.

1.    There are no ethical judgments over which no disagreement exists.
2.    There is no way to prove which side of a disagreement is correct.
3.    If there is no way to prove a judgment, then it can’t be objectively true.
4.    Therefore, ethical judgments are not objectively true.



Both premises 2 and 3 have been challenged.

One of the most common arguments against ethical subjectivism is an argument from intuition. The schema for this argument is:
1.    If ethical subjectivism is true, then x is not really wrong.
2.    But x is really wrong.
3.    Therefore, ethical subjectivism is false.


This argument is promoted by substituting “common sense” examples of egregious wrongs for x (e.g., murdering Bob).


Hume’s rejection of subjectivism is based on the principle of rational consistency (or “parity”).

If an unpleasant action is wrong for me, then it is also wrong for anyone relevantly like me.
 

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