Walsh - 1

Patrick Walsh

The Argument from Queerness

The Argument from Queerness stems from the perceived quality of moral and natural

properties. It seems, the argument goes, that moral properties can motivate, obligate, and justify a

person while natural properties are inert. That is, natural properties cannot obligate, justify, or

motivate. This is an argument against moral naturalism as it tries to point out that moral properties are

simply a different kind of properties, a sui generis class, if you will. As correct as I believe the conclusion

to be, that morality is not natural, the argument fails. The argument must be able to show that moral

claims can really motivate, can really justify, and can really obligate. My goal here is to condense

obligation and justification, to a point, into motivation. If we lose obligation, or what we “ought to do”,

we lose the main argument. If all we have is motivation, many of the mysterious qualities of moral

properties can be shown as social constructions. If the presumed qualities of morality are

fundamentally social and not intrinsic moral qualities, then the argument falls apart since all the queer

aspects of morality can either be chalked up to psychology or dismissed, showing no difference from

natural properties.

First we must establish that the many facets of queerness supposedly in moral properties are

not many facets, but one. Of course, we must make it clear what we mean when we discuss obligation,

motivation, and justification. Obligation can be taken several ways. When we discuss legal obligation,

we usually imply a sort of consequence for faulty observance of the laws. It doesn’t seem clear that

morality has any sort of analog to legal consequence. If morality dictates that we shall tell only truths in

all instances, or any categorical moral imperative, then we must try to divine some harm that can come

from disobedience. As in legal matters, you can choose to be immoral in any circumstance. If I choose
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to lie, what will happen? The answer seems to be restricted to case-by-case basis. If I am a sociopath

and decide to lie to further my interests by lying, it is quite possible that nothing will happen at all.

Some people might feel regret or shame for choosing the immoral, but this cannot be but a

psychological consequence of social norms, not morality itself. We could blame morality for the guilt,

but this would be a social concept of morality, not a metaphysical claim.

Of course, legal obligation could be spun the same way. If we observe legal dictates well, it

might simply be a function of how we avoid punishment and being caught in an illegal act would

certainly count as punishment. But in fact, this provides a good idea of the concept of obligation. In the

first sense that we are considering, obligation is merely synonymous with fear of retribution. But there

aren’t any punishments in morality that really carry weight. Any consequent of immorality is social and

cultural; it does not stem from morality. I ignore here the religious aspect of moral trespass. It is true

that if one does believe in religious punishment after death then morality could be obligating in our

current sense. The reason why this does not weigh heavily on the argument thus far is because I am

assuming only natural/non-natural realism and non-cognitivism as viable options. That is not to say that

they are the only justifiable stances, but the only ones that I’m considering presently. So if we define

obligation to be consequence based, then moral properties are not obligating, save for religious

objections. But there is another way in which to view moral obligation.

This view of obligation is the hardest to defend. It holds that obligation is metaphysically

binding. One has no choice but to do what one is committed to. Most people do not hold this view of

obligation but it will serve to illustrate an important point about moral properties. To be clear on what

obligation here means, we can compare it to the previous notion. Obligation in the social sense is why a

politician has more obligations than a child and a school teacher has an obligation to children that is not

shared by a teacher’s aide. Obligation is a social mechanism, probably a necessary one, which structures

our society to impel people to act according to external interests and wishes. But morality might take
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on the much stronger form of obligation, which we are fundamentally required to act according to moral

dictates. In this view of obligation, our actions would necessarily follow moral guidelines and therefore

morality would be so diverse as to be ultimately useless or it would not exist. One holding the stance

that obligation is metaphysically binding must hold that Ted Bundy and Mahatma Ghandi were both

following morality to the letter. But, obviously, this both contradicts what most view morality to be,

including most metaethicists, as well as would require a sort of opposite to error theory. Whereas error

theory would hold that all moral claims are false, someone holding that obligation is physically

committing would hold that all acts are moral.

So now we have both conceptions of obligation laid out: the socially encouraged following of

moral imperatives and the metaphysically binding commandments. I hope it will not be too hard to

dismiss the latter position outright. If we are bound, physically and without our knowledge, to enact

moral principles and dictates, then there would be no room for moral error. Not only does this present

many issues of its own but this stance takes for granted that we have no free will, which would require a

great deal of argument to establish. So the only really feasible stance on obligation, for most of us, is

that it is more of a social function than a moral artifact. This should not imply that obligation is weaker

because it is social and not moral. On the contrary, obligation serves an important social purpose and

should therefore be a fundamental social property. Those who do not distinguish between the moral

and the social can explain this difference away quickly. Again, I will express that the Argument from

Queerness does not pose a threat all that tangible to the constructivists and the arguments laid out here

are aimed for the discussion of non-cognitivism and realism. So for these camps, the social and the

moral are distinct.

Since the strong definition of obligation is likely false, we turn then to the weaker definition. If

obligation is a social construct of social consequences, then it is nothing but a motivation for us social

humans. It follows then, that a sociopath would have no obligations. We observe obligation because
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we want to be accepted as trustworthy, reliable, responsible, caring, self-sustaining, etc. These are all

social ideas of our image that we might be able to improve upon if we respect our obligations. If

morality urges us to be invariably honest, and everyone knows it, I have a personal interest to appear

honest at all times. I believe it is common experience that “white” lies can be appropriate and even

helpful for everyone involved. We might know that it is always wrong to lie, but we do it anyway

because we do not receive moral punishment but social punishment. We calculate that the social

punishment would be greater if we tell the truth now instead of telling a lie that might later come back

with a vengeance. At the very least, we act as though social consequences are the only considerations

in moral decisions. I suggest that this is a reflection of the fact that there is no discernible event that is

precipitated by an immoral or a moral act that stems directly from morality.

So morality is only obligating insofar as it is a social concept. Morality, metaphysically, probably

doesn’t stem from society, but morality still plays a large role in our society. Obligation is only

motivating in this sense. If we are morally obligated to be interminably honest, using the same example,

we are only motivated as far as we can see it benefiting our social ends. We will violate the principle for

social or personal reasons and we will follow the principle for social or personal reasons (which are no

more moral than social reasons). Thus, obligation really is just a form of motivation. In the Argument

from Queerness, we have now condensed the “queer” properties of morality to justification and

motivation. Before we show that justification and motivation are coextensive, we need to explore the

implications of the preceding arguments about obligation.

Since obligation is not inherently or directly attached to morality, it follows that morality is not

obligating on the second level. That is, morality cannot obligate you to be obligated and cannot obligate

you to be obligated to be obligated and so on. Since no “meta-obligation” can be derived from morality,

we are never obligated to be moral. This does not mean that there is no reason to be moral, but we are

not obligated to be moral in the normal sense of the word. We might be motivated to be moral, we
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might not be, but we are never obligated, either strongly or weakly, to be moral. If we are motivated to

be moral, you could say that we are obligated to be moral as well, since it seems as though they are

synonymous. In popular use, obligation is consequence based, and so here I make a point to say that

being immoral in any act or for your entire life has no moral consequences. Surely it will have significant

social and legal ramifications, but morality has no teeth. This shouldn’t be viewed as a nihilist stance

because it does not deny the existence or the importance of morality. It only makes the claim that we

are not obligated to be moral. This, as the previous arguments have shown, is actually a rather

innocuous stance.

Obligation surely is interesting, for it is supposed to be a hard-line requirement for people to

follow. Saying “you are obligated” is surely stronger than saying “you are justified in doing”. But now

we turn to the justification aspect of morality. If I tell the truth because it is a moral principal and that

act brings about unhappiness, I can say that at the very least I was justified in doing so, by acting

ethically. This might be a poor defense in many social situations, but in metaethics, we seem to think

that justification is the central aspect of morality. It certainly can be. Like obligation, justification has

several meanings. I’ll argue that regardless of the meaning one uses, justification is motivating. This can

be done without going into every definition of justification because they all share one thing in common:

retroactivity. Justification is only a hypothetical until the act in committed. We speak only about the act

to be justified in the past tense or in the hypothetical. Of course, you can be justifying presently, but it is

about an act that you have or will commit. In this sense, I suggest, that justification is actually a special

case of obligation.

For many verdictive beliefs, judging act tokens in a moral context, we think there is certain

criterion that enables one to be justified. I suggest that this normativity of justification is simply a list of

obligations. If one is to be justified, for instance, one must believe in a moral principle, one must believe

that what they are doing is in accordance with said principle, and have second order knowledge of the
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whole thing. That is only one view of justification that needn’t be defended here. Each of those criteria

is a small obligation. So justification is a special obligation, one that is obligating only if all criteria are

satisfied. This list is a reflective list. That is, it must be evaluated after or in the planning of an act. This

is how, regardless of the justification principles used, they can all be lumped into obligation, which we

have already considered as a type of motivation. Justification is obviously a motivating factor. If we will

only be justified by doing certain acts, then we will want to do those acts. We will be motivated to act

upon what is justified as we would if we were obligated to act. So now, we have established that

obligation and justification are really just motivation. This will serve as a crucial point when I attempt to

dismiss motivation as a moral property. Hopefully then we will see that none of the three aspects of

morality are really parts of morality at all, but social and personal qualities.

Since all moral “queerness” stems from motivation, showing that motivation is not a moral

quality will defeat the Argument from Queerness. This can be done in the following way. The point of

the distinction of moral properties as motivating is to distinguish them from natural qualities, which

presumably do not motivate. I will argue that the both motivate in the same way. A natural property or

claim like, “There’s a banana on the table,” is supposedly not motivating. I would agree that this claim

about natural phenomenon is not motivating in itself. But it seems reasonable, then, to assert that the

claim, “Lying is bad,” is not motivating unless we make it so. Perhaps we think of morality as motivating

because most people want to be moral. Therefore, as a general rule, we are motivated by moral claims.

But this could also be true of the banana. If I were hungry, or had a banana collection to add to, I might

be extremely motivated to take the banana, eat the banana, or throw it or what have you. The point is

that we want the banana, so we are motivated by it.

So either both natural and moral properties motivate or neither does. A moral property like,

“pain is bad” is only motivating if we want it to be. Of course, we need to explain what motivation really

is. Like obligation there are two forms of motivations: strong motivation and weak motivation. Strong
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motivation is like strong obligation; it compels you to act. If you have a strong motivation, you act

according to your motivation, you eat the banana. The weak motivation is simply a feeling of action. If

you have a weak motivation, it is really up to you whether you want to follow that impulse. The strong

version is obvious in its consequences. The weak version, however, is hard to recognize. Unfortunately,

motivation in all the aspects discussed here are in the weak version. You can be motivated to throw

that banana, lie to your best friend, poke a chair, or save an innocent life and yet still act otherwise. I

believe this is a perfect indicator of social and personal habits that are not moral. Since free will,

whatever degree we have of it, enables us to choose to be obligated, choose to be motivated, and

choose to justify ourselves. This choice is the cause of the motivation. This choice is the cause of the

queerness in morality. It is not because morality is different than the natural, although it can be; it is

because we view morality differently than we do the natural.

This is the essential point. A moral property is only motivating insofar as we want it to be. Our

morality is motivating and obligating when we act in accordance with social norms and is justifying when

acting against or in the grey areas of social norms. This is not the place for an extended moral

psychology discussion, but it suffices to say that my boundaries of social and personal motivation

include both altruism and egoism. Regardless of whether a person is moral for themselves or for others

(or the more common combination of the two), their motivation is grounded in something other than

morality itself. “That is bad,” isn’t, by itself, motivating. One must hold a belief about badness and

about the other relevant non-moral facts about the situation. This belief about badness could be

subjective, unfounded, selfish, false, or whatever attribute you would like. The fact remains, the moral

property is not motivating; the belief about it is. It might be the case that a person finds that statement

boring and unmotivating. Another person might find it a call to action. This shows that the motivation

depends on something rather than the property.

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Now we see that motivation, combining obligation and justification, is not basic to morality, but

a meta-belief about morality. We are only morally obligated because we put social value on morality.

We are motivated by what is justified and what is not because of the intellectual and social ground you

wish to stand on. Morality is only motivating because we will it to be, not because it is essentially. And

so the Argument from Queerness fails. Again, to stress a point, it does not follow from this that its

conclusion is incorrect. It might well be, and there are many good cases for it, that natural and moral

properties are essentially different. This argument, however, does not illustrate what it intends to

illustrate. If moral and natural properties are necessarily different, it is not a difference in motivation,

obligation, or justification.