The New

Subjectivism
in Morality
Brand Blanchard
Chapter 3
Intro to Ethics
Professor Douglas Olena
Subjectivism

33 “When anyone says ‘this is right’ or ‘this is

good,’ he is only expressing his own feeling; he is
not asserting anything true or false, because he is
not asserting or judging at all; he is really making
an exclamation that expresses a favorable feeling.”
This remark reflects David Hume’s sentiment
about values. “Vice and virtue… are not qualities
in objects, but perceptions in the mind.” (68)
 Positivism

33 “If the new view has become popular in ethics,

it is because certain persons who were at work in
the theory of knowledge arrived at a new view
there, and found, on thinking it out, that it
required a new view in ethics; the new view comes
less from ethical analysis than from logical
positivism.”
 Positivism
33 “The judgment that knowledge is good, for
example, did not seem to be analytic; [like
mathematics] the value that knowledge might
have did not seem to be part of our concept of
knowledge.”
34 “Neither was the statement empirical, for
goodness was not a quality like red or squeaky
that could be seen or heard.”
So, how should statements like this be explained?
34 The positivists “explained value judgments by
explaining them away.”
 Positivism

34 “The theory claims to show by analysis that

when we say ‘That is good,’ we do not mean to
assert a character of the subject of which we are
thinking. I shall argue that we do mean to do just
that.”
The rabbit story…
 The Rabbit
34 Blanchard starts with the thesis he assumes we
all agree on: “Pain is bad.”
The rabbit suffers…
The Positivist suggests that when we hear this
story and say something about the rabbit’s pain
that we are only saying something about our
emotional state on hearing about the rabbit’s
suffering.
Blanchard tells us on the contrary, that he is
saying something about the pain and suffering the
rabbit experienced.
 The Rabbit

34 Blanchard is saying the rabbit’s suffering is bad

without anyone hearing about it.
The positivist would say that no evil has taken
place except when we fabricate it by hearing of
the event.
This is Blanchard’s first argument
 The Rabbit
34 Blanchard’s second argument suggests that if
we mistakenly believe the rabbit suffered and later
find out it didn’t, we are relieved.
The positivist would say that the mistaken belief
produces the same feeling in us and therefore has
the same value as if the rabbit had suffered.
35 Blanchard reminds us that we are not talking
about our feelings when we make a remark about
the rabbit, but the objective suffering of the
rabbit, and that it is a relief to hear that the
suffering did not take place.
 The Rabbit
35 Blanchard’s third argument:
1. First hearing the incident, we feel sympathy for
the rabbit.
2. Remembering the incident a week later, we do
not have the same feeling about the rabbit,
though we still believe what happened to be
bad as we did at first.
3. The positivist would reply that the recollection
is different from the initial response to the
incident because our emotion was different.
4. Blanchard disagrees with that assessment. The
incident was bad in the same way regardless of
my feelings about it.
 The Rabbit
35 Blanchard’s fourth argument: an event should
elicit a certain reaction from the hearer.
In other words there is a certain fit between the
event and the reaction.
Blanchard’s point is that if a person hears of a
murder and is gleefully happy, we think him
deranged or mentally ill in some way.
This is because we take it that some events are
inherently evil and others inherently good.
 The Rabbit

36 “If goodness and badness lie in attitudes only

and are brought into being by them, those men
who greeted death and misery with childishly
merry laughter are taking the only sensible line.”
This, however doesn’t seem to fit with the reality
of life.
 The Rabbit
36 Blanchard’s fifth argument: The positivist view
“makes mistakes about values impossible.”
37 “There is an old… distinction… between what
is subjectively and objectively right. They [the
moralists] have said that in any given situation
there is some act which, in view of all the
circumstances, would be the best act to do; and
this is what would be objectively right.”
“The notion of an objectively right act is the
ground of our notion of duty; our duty is always to
find and do this act if we can.”
 The Rabbit
37 “The new subjectivism would abolish” the
difference between objective right and wrong “at a
stroke.”
If the subjectivist view is correct I may be
subjectively right and objectively wrong.
Subjectivism “prohibits the distinction” between
right and wrong.
We get from subjectivism:
“If it feels good, do it.”
“That may be right for you, but not for me.”
 The Rabbit

37 “If there is no such thing as an objectively right

act, what becomes of the idea of duty?”
“Such a view seem to me to break the mainspring
of duty, to destroy the motive for self-
improvement, and to remove the ground for self-
criticism.”
 The Rabbit
37, 38 If one were to make this new moral code an
international law, the consequences would be
catastrophic.
At the time of this essay’s writing, the cold war
between the US and the USSR was going on.
If the Soviets had said, “we feel like we need to
take more territory in Europe.” The US under the
glamor of this new moral theory would be able to
say nothing against that move.