The limits of objectivity
In Grethe B. Peterson (ed.) The Tanner lectures on human values, Salt Lake City, 2004, pp. 75–139
Abstract
Objectivity constitutes a method of understanding achieved by detaching from a particular viewpoint to form a more comprehensive, centerless conception of reality. While successful in the physical sciences, this method faces significant limitations when applied to the mind and human values. The physical conception of objectivity cannot fully accommodate the perspectival nature of conscious experience; therefore, a realistic account of reality must include subjective points of view that resist total reduction. In the domain of practical reasoning, a similar tension exists between agent-neutral values, which are recognizable from an impersonal standpoint, and agent-relative reasons, which emerge from individual autonomy and deontology. Although certain experiences like pain possess agent-neutral badness, other values remain inextricably tied to an agent’s specific projects or moral constraints against intentional harm. Because human beings are simultaneously particular persons and objective observers, a unified ethical system cannot be reached by prioritizing the most detached standpoint. Instead, a realistic meta-ethics must acknowledge the coexistence of disparate, often conflicting, reasons for action. Moral and political progress require navigating the rivalry between these internal and external perspectives rather than attempting to eliminate subjectivity entirely. – AI-generated abstract.
Quotes from this work
Consider how strange is the question posed by someone who wants a justification for altruism about such a basic matter as this. Suppose he and some other people have been admitted to a hospital with severe burns after being rescued from a fire. “I understand how my pain provides me with a reason to take an analgesic,” he says, “and I understand how my groaning neighbor’s pain gives him a reason to take an analgesic; but how does his pain give me any reason to want him to be given an analgesic? How can his pain give me or anyone else looking at it from outside a reason?
This question is crazy. As an expression of puzzlement, it has that characteristic philosophical craziness which indicates that something very fundamental has gone wrong. This shows up in the fact that the answer to the question is obvious, so obvious that to ask the question is obviously a philosophical act. The answer is that pain is awful. The pain of the man groaning in the next bed is just as awful as yours. That’s your reason to want him to have an analgesic.