With Good Reason: a debate on the foundations of ethics

Summary

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Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: LSE: Public Lectures and Events
Episode: With Good Reason – a debate on the foundations of ethics
Date: December 6, 2012
Host/Chair: Jonathan Derbyshire

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Overview: Main Theme and Purpose

This episode brings together a diverse panel—Angus Ritchie (priest and theologian), Julian Baggini (philosopher and atheist), and Mark Vernon (agnostic writer)—to debate the fundamental question: What are the foundations of ethics? Specifically, the panel considers whether ethical truths (moral realism) are best explained by theism, whether secular alternatives suffice, and how these questions intersect with morality’s public role and everyday practice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Angus Ritchie: The Moral Realist & Theist Explanation

(04:27–13:53)

• Moral Realism: Ritchie argues that in practice, humans act as moral realists, operating as though moral truths exist independently of opinion or culture.
• Atheism's Explanatory Challenge: He contends that atheism cannot satisfactorily explain why humans are able to know objective moral truths, since evolutionary advantages do not align with moral truth (e.g., protecting the vulnerable isn't always adaptive).
• Theism as Explanation: Theism, he suggests, offers a robust account: humans can perceive moral truths because they (and the world) are created with a loving purpose, allowing harmony between moral faculties and moral reality.
• Key Quote:

  “We all behave like moral realists. We may or may not defend the position... but we all act as if there's something we're trying to get right.” (05:44, Ritchie)

2. Julian Baggini: Secular Perspectives & Critique of Moral Realism

(14:03–21:46)

• Questioning Moral Realism: Baggini challenges the binary between moral realism and mere preference, suggesting morality includes objective, factual aspects (like suffering) without entailing real truths akin to scientific facts.
• Empathy and Reason: He claims that empathy and rational consistency are enough for morality to get traction in the world, and sees no need for religious metaphysics to explain moral motivation.
• Design Argument Flaws: He critiques the “designed for morality” argument by pointing out human moral failings and the slow development of ethical insight even under theism.
• Public Square: Baggini emphasizes the importance of justifying moral positions using language and reasons all citizens can debate, regardless of religious background.
• Key Quote:

  “I struggle to see why this dichotomy is so appealing... You can fully accept there’s plenty of objective, factual stuff involved in morality without them being like scientific truths.” (15:15, Baggini)

3. Mark Vernon: Moral Imagination, Virtue Ethics, and Transcendence

(21:50–31:55)

• Moral Imagination: Vernon proposes a broader view, focusing on the kind of people we are becoming, not just right and wrong acts—looking at moral energy rather than certainty.
• Objective Good & Virtue Ethics: He draws on the tradition of virtue ethics and moral imagination to suggest that goodness draws us toward itself; moral emotions, not just rationality, play a foundational role.
• Transcendence and Tradition: He observes that religious traditions are more comfortable embracing transcendence, the sense that goodness is beyond us, and integrating moral formation, mistakes, and beauty.
• Key Quote:

  “We’re drawn towards [goodness] because it promises a fuller flourishing of what it is to be human.” (24:07, Vernon)

4. The Place of Religion in Public Ethical Discourse

(31:55–39:09)

• Ritchie: Religious people can and should offer rational arguments for their ethical beliefs. “Apologetic” arguments help religious views be taken seriously in the public square.
• Baggini: In public debate, meta-ethics (“backstory”) is less relevant than practical, negotiable reasons accessible to all.

5. Moral Language: Tracking Truth vs. Imagination

(39:09–43:09)

• Imagination and Emotion as Resources: All agree that morality encompasses imagination and emotions, shaped by literature, film, and the arts, and that using only logical argument “misses the point.”
• Key Agreement:

  “Moral philosophy, actually, I think a lot is done through fiction and literature. All that’s true, and...we don’t have to divide on whether we believe in God or not.” (41:47, Baggini)

6. Meta-Ethics and Everyday Morality

(43:09–47:53)

• Theory vs. Practice: While few act from moral theory, bad theories can justify evil; most everyday moral action is habitual, not theoretical. Reflection and practical wisdom (the Greek phronesis) are crucial.

7. Evolution, Progress, and Moral Diversity

(60:13–66:17)

• Evolution of Morality: The panel discusses whether evolving morality supports realism or relativism.

  • Ritchie: Moral progress is evidence for objective reality; we critique past and future generations.
  • Baggini: Moral beliefs shift with social and factual understanding, but neither realism nor anti-realism has a monopoly on progress.

• Are Some People More Moral Than Others?

  • Vernon and Ritchie: Yes—moral exemplars exist, and storytelling captures their complexity.

8. The Challenge of Motivation

(69:47–73:36)

• Secular Motivation: Baggini responds that “Why be moral?” can’t always be answered by further argument—eventually, it grounds in empathic response and socialization.
• Ritchie: Moral claims exert a “binding” force; the nature of that claim is what’s in dispute.

9. The Tragic Dimension and Hope

(85:05–87:21)

• Moral Tragedy: Ordinary decency is easy to understand, hard to live. Human weakness, societal temptation, and tragedy (the Coen Brothers’ films cited) reveal why morality is a continual challenge, not merely a matter of theory.

• Key Quote:

  “Moral decency is something which is much less complicated than moral theory, but much more difficult to live than we might think.” (87:21, Baggini)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On our commitment to moral realism:

  “We all behave like moral realists. We may or may not defend the position... but we all act as if there's something we're trying to get right.” (05:44, Ritchie)

• On secular objectivity in morality:

  “Suffering is real... Morality gets going from objective elements—empathy and consistency—but not the same as scientific truths.” (16:55, Baggini)

• Design argument skepticism:

  “If our moral faculties were so well-designed, you’d expect us to get things right a bit more.” (18:45, Baggini)

• Imagination and transcendence in morality:

  “What’s objective points beyond our own immediate concerns... The good draws us as much as we pursue the good.” (24:07, Vernon)

• On relating theory and practice:

  “You need kind of a bad moral theory to be truly bad a lot of the time, I think.” (46:20, Baggini)

• On humility and faith:

  “If you think you’ve got it [all]... you’re worshipping an idol… God calls everything into question.” (57:04, Vernon)

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Selected Timestamps for Key Segments

• 04:27 – Ritchie opens with summary argument for moral realism and theistic explanation
• 14:03 – Baggini responds, critiquing moral realism and defending secular moral objectivity
• 21:50 – Vernon introduces moral imagination and virtue ethics
• 31:55 – Public square: metaphysics vs. practice
• 39:09 – Moral language: “tracking truth” vs. imagination and emotion
• 60:13 – Q&A: evolution, progress, and the implications for morality
• 69:47 – Q&A: What is the reason for being moral without God?
• 85:05 – Q&A: The tragic element in ordinary morality

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Conclusion

Consensus and Tension:
All agree morality engages with objective structures (whether facts, suffering, or traditions). Disagreement centers on whether this demands a metaphysical foundation (theism), or if secular reason, empathy, and imagination suffice.
The interplay of rationality, emotion, culture, and transcendence—and humility about our limited grasp of the good—remain central to the debate.

Ending thought:

“Moral decency is much more difficult to live than we might think.” (87:21, Baggini)

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For further engagement:

• Angus Ritchie’s From Goodness to God: Why Religion Makes Sense of Our Moral Commitments and its longer version From Morality to Metaphysics (OUP)
• Theos Think Tank
• LSE Public Events Series

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Hashtags: #LSethics

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[Summary by LSE Film and Audio Team podcast summarizer. For more public lectures and events, visit the LSE website.]

Transcript

[A]

Well, welcome to this Forum on Religion panel discussion and debate on the foundations of ethics which we are co hosting tonight with the religion and society think tank theos. My name is Matthew Engelke. I'm an anthropologist here at the school and I'm also the coordinator of the school's Program for the Study of Religion and Non Religion which hosts the forum events. Before turning over to our chair for tonight, Jonathan Darbyshire, who's the cultural editor at the New Statesman. I'd just like to thank Elizabeth Oldfield and Nick Spencer of THEOS for helping put this event together, as well as the support we've received from the LSE Annual Fund. The study of religion, secularity and related fields are becoming increasingly important and vibrant here at the school and it's a pleasure to have you with us this evening. If I may, I'd also just like to mention that this commitment is only growing. Next October the LSE will be launching a new one year taught masters program on religion in the contemporary world. So please do take a look at this and spread the word. We're open to everyone. Some of you look student aged, but in fact everyone's welcome to take these MSCs and we hope to get a wide variety of people on the course.

[B]

With that plug though.

[A]

I will turn over now to Jonathan who will introduce the panelists and give you a sense of the course of the events tonight. So thank you to Jonathan.

[B]

Thanks.

[C]

Thanks very much, Matthew. Good evening everyone. Particularly delighted to have been asked to chair this event given the long historical association between the New Statesman magazine and the London School of Economics, given that they were two institutions founded by the same people, Beatrice and Sidney Webb. That's working. I'll introduce the speakers, saying a little bit about the format, the event the evening's proceedings will take and then we'll kick off. I'd like first to introduce on my left, Angus Ritchie. He's director of the Contextual Theology Centre in East London and he's the author of a report, I think you all have a copy, am I right? You all have a copy of the report entitled From Goodness to God why Religion Makes Sense of Our Moral Commitments, published by the religion and society think tank theos. This slender pamphlet is based on what Angus tells me is a slightly bigger book entitled From Morality to Metaphysics, published by Oxford University Press, which I'm sure you're all going to rush out and buy at the end of the evening. Our other speakers on my right is Julian Borgini, who's a writer, journalist and co founder of the Philosopher's magazine. And on my left, Mark Vernon, who's a writer, journalist and the author of many books, as is Julian, the most recent of which is the Big Questions. So a word or two about how we'll proceed. Angus is going to Talk for between five and 10 minutes, setting out the principal theses of the report and, I take it, of the book. Julian and Mark are then going to respond for roughly five minutes each, in that order. Then I will facilitate a discussion between the three panelists. And then with about half an hour, 45 minutes to go, I'll throw the discussion open to you. So I'm sure you're all going to have questions to ask our three speakers. There is a Twitter hashtag for the event, which is LSethics. If you've got mobile phones, can you either turn them off or if you're tweeting, turn them to silent? And it is hoped, I gather, that a podcast of the event will be available sometime in the near future. So I think that's enough housekeeping. Angus, I pass it over to you. Thank you.

[D]

Thank you. Theos tweeted about this event yesterday, saying an atheist, an agnostic and a priest debate goodness and God. And this led to a quick response by another tweeter. Sounds like the start of a joke. What's the punchline? Well, I have to tell you that any humor in my talk tonight is entirely accidental. The argument of my report and of the book is threefold. Firstly, that human beings are in practice committed to moral realism. And by moral realism, I mean the belief that moral truths exist in independently of our opinions and cultural conventions. Secondly, that atheism has a problem in explaining why human beings are capable of knowing such truths. And thirdly, that theism does offer an explanation. So, firstly, why do I say that humans are in practice committed to some kind of moral realism? Well, the way we reason about morality, the way we talk about it, the way we deliberate on how to act, suggests we are trying to get something right. We revise our opinions. We question the conventions of our culture as if we were trying to match them to some objective truth. We make a strong distinction between statements that merely express tastes and those that are about things being right and wrong. To use an example given by an atheist philosopher, Ronald Dworkin, if someone says that football is a bad or worthless game, they will usually concede on reflection that this is just an expression of their personal attitudes. By contrast, when someone says that torture or racism is wrong, they are making a claim about reasons for action which are binding on each of us, whatever tastes and sensibilities we have. So my first claim is that we all behave like moral realists. We may or may not defend the position in today's discussion, but we all act as if there is something we are trying to get right. Now, the fact we behave as if moral realism is true doesn't of course, make it true. But all of human reasoning begins by taking certain fundamentals on trust. We have to rely on our most basic rational faculties. The way we choose between rival explanations, decide which ones seem good and bad, powerful and less powerful. The confidence we have that natural laws which have held in the past will hold in the future. We have to take these things on trust. These are the rational faculties which tell us what is reasonable, unreasonable. So we can't defend them without some kind of circularity. My claim is that we take our moral faculties on the same kind of trust and our right to do so. It is self evident that the wrongness of certain acts consists in more than our revulsion. If any philosophical system were to say otherwise, that would be a reason to reject the system. It was this thought, this line of thought as news about the concentration camps came out, that moved Philippa Foote, another atheist philosopher, to become a moral realist. And in fact, moral realism is supported by many atheists. So why, why am I suggesting it should lead on in any way to theism I want to make clear, and I explained this in the report, there's no suggestion that atheists have no reason to be good. Atheists have no shortage of reasons to be good. We all reason to respect the dictates of our conscience. And precisely because our consciences point to something beyond themselves, we all have reason to reflect on them rationally, to test them against the consciences and perspectives of other people, so that we can come closer to the moral truth. So why does morality need a religious foundation? Well, any kind of realism, realism about any subject matter implies that human beings have faculties which can latch onto the truth. The machinery, if you like, which generates our most fundamental commitments, which helps us tell a good explanation from a bad one, a good argument from a bad one, and for moral realists, a good action from a bad one. That machinery manages to track a truth which is beyond our minds. There is then a harmony between the processes in our minds and something about objective reality. And that harmony cries out for explanation. We need to be clear about what kind of explanation is being asked for, because the question I'm asking is often confused with two other ones. Firstly, there's the question of justification. Do we have reason to trust our faculties, and I've argued that we do, whether we're theists or atheists. Then there are questions of historical explanation. We can use psychology and sociology to explain why human beings have come to the particular moral attitudes we hold. But I'm asking a third question. How do we explain the harmony between our faculties and the objective moral order? Psychology and sociology may explain why we have the particular moral attitudes we do, but that won't explain why they come anywhere near the truth. So answering the question of justification of why we are right to trust our faculties and answering the question of historical explanation still doesn't explain why the harmony between our faculties and attitudes and any kind of objective moral truth. Now, I'm not suggesting that harmony is total. Clearly, human beings make many mistakes on moral matters. But I am suggesting that we're right to trust our moral faculties to hope that if we continue to reflect together honestly, sensitively and rigorously, we can get closer to the truth than if we roll some dice or spin a roulette wheel. Which leads to the question, why do our moral faculties, however, fallibly, manage in this way to track the truth? In the case of our knowledge of the physical world and of basic principles of reasoning, I think natural selection could explain the reliability of our faculties. A group which can reason well and form true beliefs about the world around it is likely to be better at surviving and replicating. So there's a connection between evolutionary advantage and objective truth. But that explanation isn't available in the moral case. We don't think that evolutionary benefit and moral truth coincide. Richard Dawkins certainly doesn't. He agrees that civilization can and should transcend the simple imperative to survive and replicate. We come to recognize a duty to protect and not to cast off the weak and vulnerable, even when it's not particularly beneficial to the wider group. We come to recognize that human beings have a value which means there are certain ways we should never treat them. We come to recognize, for example, that torture and rape would never be justified simply to keep the species going. Now, precisely because these moral principles don't maximize the species survival and replication, evolutionary biology will not explain the harmony between our cognitive faculties and the moral order. And it's hard to see how else atheism might explain it. Just to summarize the argument, firstly, human beings, I'm arguing, are committed to believing in moral realism, in a moral order that doesn't just tell us to maximize our species survival and replication. Secondly, we can't expect evolutionary biology to explain why our moral faculties are harmonious with that objective moral order. And it's hard to see how an atheist worldview would come up with an alternative plausible explanation. And thirdly, and no doubt this is a subject we'll come back to in discussion. I'm suggesting theism does offer an explanation. In a world which is created, which expresses a loving purpose, a purpose which works partly through processes like natural selection, but also other natural processes, we can see why there would be the harmony there is between our moral faculties and the moral order.

[C]

Thanks very much. I'd like to ask Julian Bugini to respond.

[B]

Well, thanks very much. There's a lot to unpack here and probably have to do a lot in the discussion. I primarily welcome this opportunity in the report because it's not often you get to discuss proper grown up philosophical issues like this in the public sphere. Normally, if we're debating religion and ethics, a typical radio producer or newspaper editor unfortunately often not want to go beyond is religion the root of all evil? Or can atheists be good? And fortunately, I think we don't have to waste any time on those today. But in terms of the substance of the report, I do disagree, perhaps unsurprisingly with most of it. I think the. I'm sorry about that. It's true. The root issue I think for me is about this issue of moral realism. Now this is the idea that moral truths express are that they are truths, they express things that are true or false. They're not mere opinion. Now the problem I have with this, and to be completely fair, this is something I have a problem with a lot of secular moral philosophy as well. So this isn't a particular problem of an issue of a religious perspective on this. I'm somewhat puzzled as to why it is. The choice is always presented in these very binary terms. So to use some of the phrases Angus uses, for example, the moral realism is held to contrast against the view that the wrongness of acts is not simply a matter of taste opinion, that we do more than consult our preferences and tastes, and that these are not judgments which are mere preferences. So it seems like we're faced with two choices. Either there are moral truths, objective things which are really existing which we can know, or we're forced to conclude morality is just a matter of taste and opinion and so forth. And I struggle to see why this dichotomy is so appealing to people, because it seems to me that you can fully accept that there's plenty of objective, factual stuff, if you like, involved in morality without that implying that they are the same kinds of truths as scientific truths waiting to be discovered. So the primary ones are these. So here's what's real about morality. Suffering is real, right? We know suffering is real. You cannot look at the world with a proper understanding of the way it works and not notice that suffering is real. Real. You will also notice that suffering is a bad thing by pure, simple analogy with your own case. If nothing else, even if you are unable to, through an empathetic appreciation of someone else, see that it is bad for them. There is an element of consistency that if you recognize that certain things are bad for you and those you love, they're bad for other people too. And so really, by a fairly straightforward ability to apply certain principles of logical consistency, applying the same reasons to others as yourself, and by just noticing the reality of suffering and so forth, you can see how morality gets going. There are objective elements there, but that doesn't mean that moral truths exist in the same level as scientific truths. I think this is actually a broader point about rationality and reason. Actually, the way in which reason works is that there are certain facts about the world we discover with more or less certainty and we bring to bear our judgment upon it. And judgment involves things like logical consistency and reasoning. But these things do not deliver you a conclusion completely. Inevitably, even in areas around physics and so forth, there are elements of judgment that are involved. And so that also answers the point Angus makes about whether atheism can explain how we can have a moral understanding. Well, we can, because there aren't these objective truths about morality out there which we somehow need to discover. It's just straightforwardly, we have evolved capacities for empathy and for rational logical reasoning. And these two things alone can get us to acknowledge a lot of the objective elements which allow us to think morally and also the empathy which motivates us to act upon that. Because arguably, without that empathetic understanding of other people, we may not be motivated to do anything about their suffering. Even on an intellectual level, we can understand it. I mean, a psychopath is someone who can understand someone else's suffering, for example, but that doesn't mean they're going to act upon it. So I don't really buy the core of the argument, really, which is that we have a choice between being moral realists or saying things are merely a matter of preference, and that therefore there's a problem for atheism. To explain how that is possible, I would briefly make two other short points, if I may. One is that, you know, the idea that even if we don't accept that the idea that theism provides a better explanation of how it is, why it is we can have moral knowledge, just to use that phrase, I don't find very persuasive. Because, you know, if it were the case that the reason we can think morally and understand moral things is because we were in some way designed to do that, which is what the argument does boil down to, I think then that would be more problematic, I think, than the alternative. Because it's a very bad design, isn't it? It's like the argument that the human body has been designed rather than evolved, which Angus isn't putting forward by the way. He's not against the theory of evolution. I mean, you only have to look at the back to realize that it's very badly designed for people standing on two legs, right? It's a leftover from four legged creatures. And similarly, if our moral faculty, if there was this wonderful harmony between our cognitive faculties and the moral order, then you know, you would expect us to get things right a bit more, you know, and you wouldn't expect it to take so long for people to recognize that, you know, women. I don't want to make cheap shots about women's rights, but it is in the news at the moment. You know, if our moral faculties were so well designed, why would it be that even people who are deeply motivated to do good and follow the injunctions of Christ to treat everyone well still have trouble allowing, in the case of Bristol University Christian Union, allowing women to speak without their husbands, or in the case of the Church of England, allowing women to be bishops. So I think if it's divinely designed, then very poor design. Final brief point, if I may Jonathan, is about the. There is another point about this which is about the secular sphere. Perhaps we'll talk this in discussion. And one of the reasons why this is considered important is there is a certain form of, if you like to call it militant atheism which doesn't want religion discussed in the public square. Now I don't agree with that, but I don't think this touches the argument that in the public square we should all be debating with each other and talking to each other in a common language and not appealing to our religious or non religious backgrounds. And, and I think in a sense Angus premises support that because he says at the beginning he's not arguing that all our moral knowledge comes from religious scriptures or doctrines or that it's religious people alone who have access to moral truths, or that only religious people can be good. It seems to me that all that is consistent with what I'd support, which is that everyone should feel free to contribute to public debate and not disguise their religious background. But when we're talking to each other, we are obliged to justify our moral commitments in terms that we can all argue about and debate with, not on theological grounds. So I'm not sure it actually really affects that debate about the appropriate place of religion in the public square.

[C]

Thanks very much, Julian.

[E]

Mark.

[F]

I might just stand up so I can see this side of the room as well. But let me just echo the thanks to Theos and to Angus for putting his report so out in the public, which is a noble and courageous thing to do. I wanted to perhaps just broaden the discussion a little bit by bringing in a couple of other dimensions that I think do use words like moral objectivity and moral realism, but in a slightly different context, in a different way. And I hope that might help just to broaden the conversation a little as well. I wanted to talk a little bit about, first of all, the moral imagination, and then secondly, virtue ethics. So with moral imagination, I think this is pointing to a different kind of moral objectivity. It's not so much what's right and wrong, which is a focus on what we do, if you like. Rather it's a focus on where we're going. You might say the kind of people that we're becoming, they're not completely different, but it prioritizes the question of where we're going and the people we're becoming. So you might say it's not so much seeking moral certainty in life, rather it's seeking a kind of moral energy with which to engage with life. Hope that you can see the slight shift there. So in this case, what's objective points beyond our own immediate concerns, or what we immediately take to be the case, and understands the word objective to mean that that which is good in some sense stands over us or stands beyond us in part as judgment to judge who we are, who we're becoming and what we do, but also, I think, to draw us towards it by its moral beauty. You might say we're drawn towards it because it promises a fuller flourishing of what it is to be human. And it's also known as much by what you might call moral emotions as well as by moral reasoning. So in this question about whether there's kind of rational objectivity or mere taste, I would want to say that it's actually a combination of both aspects that can reveal or tell us something about what it is to be a moral person, what it is to be becoming more fully human. Moral emotions such as guilt and shame on the one hand, but also gratitude, hope and love. It's a view of moral realism there, and one that I think was most commonly espoused by the ancient Greeks. You see it very clearly in the writings of individuals like plato in the 20th century, not quite this century, in the 20th century. I think Iris Murdoch particularly understood this and she perhaps is an interesting figure. Throw in because she wasn't a sort of fully signed up theist. You may well know her book the Sovereignty of Good, which is a sort of 20th century version of Platonism. And she talked about the need that we humans have for a moral wider horizon. A wider horizon she talked about. And this wider horizon draws our moral imagination. And again, it can be thought of as objective in some sense because it doesn't depend upon what we human beings make of things, as it were, within our own horizons. It's not made by us, it's rather that we seek it and maybe even that it seeks us. In some sense the good draws us as much as we pursue the good. Perhaps another way to try and talk about this is to contrast it with other versions of morality that do the rounds. And I think it, it makes nice contrast with say, the morality based on rights. It's in tension with the notion of rights. I think that they can sort of coexist, but it is intention. Now, rights are valuable because they focus on the individual and in principle at least, they can be reasoned out. So there's a kind of tightness and a satisfactory nature to rights, in principle at least because of that. But for the same reason, I think rights are limited and in particular because they lose touch with the moral imagination, with this side of us that is drawn by what's good as much as what reasons what's good. So moral rights tend to think of life in terms of rights and responsibilities, which are good things, but they're limited because we human beings are more than just what can be summed up by rights and responsibilities. And also I think because the moral imagination is interested in exploration, it's interested too in our moral mistakes. Often our imagination is expanded because we make mistakes, because things go wrong. That needs to be included somehow in an account of morality as a constructive, potentially part of morality. And also, I think, because it encourages a kind of humility, because it's interested in that which lies beyond. So for me it's a much more expansive notion of morality because it draws, tries to draw in much more diversely what we are as Human beings not drawing. The binary distinctions that Julian suggested can be drawn between, say, taste and the aesthetic side of us and the reasoning side of us. Now, the aesthetic side, I think, is illuminating too, because there's a kind of aesthetic analogy to this version of morality in the terms of the artist. And the artist tries to see the world, you might say, in a different way. And similarly, too, I think the moral imagination is interested in our attention towards the world and whether we can see life in a different way. In a way, empirically, the world might look exactly the same, but people with different moral imaginations see a very different world in front of them and feel themselves to be participating in a very different world. Again, this actually draws on this notion of objectivity, because in a certain sense, the subjective element disappears. I'm very drawn to what Virginia Woolf wrote about Shakespeare in her essay A Room of One's Own. And she talks about how Shakespeare appears to die to himself so that he can live in his art. And I think this is a profoundly moral approach to art, to what Shakespeare was doing. And Virginia Woolf says that this enables his poetry to flow from him free and unimpeded. He sees the world actually in diverse ways, and he's able to do that partly because he has this moral imagination which allows him to die to himself, as it were. His own personality disappears in his work. And again, this is a different sense, I think, of objectivity. For me, the subjective disappear in a way. It shows us more of what the world is or might be and more than we might just see it from our own, as a camera view, looking out from our camera eyes, if you like. It takes a broader horizon, a wider horizon into perspective, and in a way, enables us to stand out of ourselves. And the way that we engage morally with the world, it startles and delights us, Murdoch says, And when something startles and delights us, that's a sense that perhaps we're being taken out of ourself. Now, that's to do with the moral imagination. Let me just try and connect it a bit to virtue ethics. I need to. Okay, just a minute or two just on this, then. I think it's connected to the tradition known as virtue ethics, because virtue ethics is interested in what we're becoming, and particularly in terms of our character and our habits. Virtue is a bit of an awkward word for us today, but if you think of it in terms of just the habits with which we live everyday life and the character, the kind of person that we're becoming, I hope you can see that Perhaps that the moral imagination, cultivating a different attention to the world, is going to be intimately linked with this notion of virtue. Again, it's interested in the mistakes we made, we make, and how we can learn from those by reflecting. But it's also a kind of training, again, perhaps like the analog with the artist needs a training. They need to situate themselves in a certain tradition and to go through a training to enable them to use the materials at their disposal. And so too the moral imagination, I think, recognizes that we need to be sat within a certain tradition and go for a kind of education for life. And for a number of reasons. Then my suspicion just is that this idea of morality is going to sit more comfortably within a theistic tradition than it is within an atheistic tradition. I think it just seems to me that religious people are more content with notions of the transcendence, with that which lies beyond us, with notions of the good that might draw us as much as we seek the good. And also, this is a sort of pragmatic comment really, but when I try and talk about virtue ethics, I just notice that religious audiences tend to get it more. They see life as a process, as one where we make mistakes and as it were, pick ourselves up and try to learn from it. One that can bring in notions of the beautiful, the good and the true, as well as just reasoning. It's not to say that atheistic people don't get it. Again, we're not really into that kind of discussion tonight. But it just seems to me, I notice that religious people get ideas of the transcendent, of the good that draws us of a kind of training that's required in life, of the value of the virtues, if you like. Because they see immediately that life is more than just reasoning. Reasoning helps us discern things, to judge things, but actually we're more than that as human beings. Some thoughts on that.

[C]

Thanks very much, Mark Angus. I wonder whether we can start by asking you to respond to something that Julian said at the beginning of the pamphlet. You suggest that the metaphysical argument you're making here about the peculiar fittedness of theism to explain human beings capacity for moral reasoning somehow has implications for arguments about the place of religion in the public sphere. Now, Julian's suggestion seemed to be, if I understood him, that there's no obvious reason why that should be the case. And it's perfectly possible to make arguments for the admission of religion into the public sphere that don't appeal to theistic reasons at all. We could argue, for example, that religious people ought not to be required to set their most fundamental commitments to one side when they enter public deliberation on the basis of fundamental principles of equality or justice, for example, and that make no reference to.

[B]

To.

[C]

Theological principles at all. So I wonder if you could respond to that challenge of Julian's and say a bit more about what the connection is between the metaphysical argument and then the argument about the nature of secularism in place of religion in the public sphere.

[D]

Yes, I think in this and in this question about the relationship between reason and the sentiments that we'll come on to, I think things are a lot less binary as we explore them. So I think there are other reasons absolutely for admitting religion into the public sphere other than this one. But I think if there are ways in which religious people are willing to and able to give arguments for the truth of their beliefs that are kind of publicly rationally stateable, that does remove one of the kind of objections which is, well, you just make these assertions on the basis of some kind of, you know, assertions about the nature of God and reality that you can't back up. I mean, I think it's in the nature of political and moral discourse that if we want to have a conversation where others are included, you need to kind of give some backstory to why you believe what you do. So I think that's the relevance of this, is that it, these kind of apologetic arguments enable religious people to say, look, here are some reasons why we have some convictions about how society should be, what would make a good community, and here are some reasons why you might want to take them seriously because they might be true.

[C]

Does sound to me a bit as though Angus has said two different things. You said one, yes, it's perfectly possible for those with religious commitments to cash out their arguments in terms of the public publicly accessible to those who don't share those commitments. And on the other hand, there's something to be gained in a public sphere from religious people explaining why they have the beliefs they do.

[B]

I mean, I think a lot of what Angus is talking about is it's the wrong level of discourse for the public square. Right. I mean, in the sense that, I mean, if I'm going to contribute to a public debate about morality, I don't think people. It's not really relevant for me to be able to give a sort of a meta ethical account of what I think the fundamental basis of ethics is and what entitles us to make judgments about morality and whether the things we're saying have the status of factual truths or whether they're just something else, which I think is more than mere preference, whatever it might be. I think that is kind of for the seminar room now, in the public square, you've got to engage with people in a sense of the level of reasons which people for various different reasons may have reasons for giving weight to. So for example, we may have very different ultimate theoretical reasons for giving weight to, let's say, animal suffering, for example. You know, I mean, you may be a Christian who thinks like there's a good theological basis for thinking that it is morally important, why we should take into account animal suffering, etc. But in the, in the public square, that's not what you're going to do. You're going to partly accept that people take suffering to be a of part, to be a bad thing. You'll have to give some reasons why animals should not be excluded from this, and then you're going to give arguments about, you know, why it is appropriate not to allow people's right to express their own personal choice, for example, is going to trump that other thing. So I think the kind of thing you're talking about in the pamphlet is kind of his backstory, as you say.

[D]

But I think there's surely some relationship between which reasons are going to be taken seriously. There must be some relationship between that sort of wider picture of what we think is metaphysically plausible. And then that doesn't spin completely unconnected from what kind of ethical views are then going to seem plausible. In the same way, I suppose we're going to have to have a kind of common conversation about what tax system we have between people who are libertarians, people who have very different views of property rights. And so there's a connection between the seminar debate, which is quite a kind of complex one about how property rights work, and some quite public discourse conversations about tax levels. They're related because depending on what's prevailing in the seminar room, there'll be a kind of center of gravity to the public discourse. So all I'm saying is that one of the factors that will affect the plausibility of some claims that the substantial proportion of the population who are religious will make the weight that should have is not completely unconnected from the possibility you think that those views might be true.

[C]

Mark, do you want to.

[F]

Yeah, well, just again, just think about what you might bring to the public sphere. I mean, I suppose I would want to see moral resources being brought to the public sphere, which are more than just having debates. It's one of the great tragedies I Think of, you know, when morality is reduced to issues about abortion or gay marriage. These very point, isolated kind of issues that matter, don't get me wrong, they matter. But it's a shame when they're felt to be, as it were, the key, the summary of all that morally matters. I think that they're very. They're sort of secondary questions that come out of the much broader issue about who we're becoming and the lives we're leading and so on. And that requires much, much more resources than just having sort of abstract, rational debate. It's all about our education. It's about the arts. It's about who are our moral heroes. It's about all sorts of things, really. And we lose touch with that so often in public moral discourse.

[C]

That brings us on very neatly to one of the points that Mark made in his presentation, Angus, which is that there was a worry about language and about the way we talk about morality. And Mark seemed to be suggesting that talking about our moral statements, as you do in the pamphlet Tracking the Truth, is precisely the wrong way to talk about morality and that we ought, in fact, to be talking about things like moral, imagination and virtue. Was there anything in that gentle criticism that Mark was making that affects the case you're making here, do you think?

[D]

If I was to be operational opportunist, I would say that this is a really good reason to buy the book. Because one of the issues I discuss in the book is actually, I'm hugely sympathetic to what Mark is saying. I absolutely don't think that moral reasons manifest themselves simply by kind of logic chopping. I think what's really interesting about the moral emotions is precisely that they present themselves as a response to something objective. So. So essentially, I think I pretty much agree. I think that. And that really brings me back to Julian's initial remark about constructing morality out of sort of empathy and then logical reasoning. Well, I think the right way to understand empathy, the reason why kind of understanding the badness of something for me and those I love might lead me on to thinking, well, it might be bad for everyone, is that it is something beyond a kind of taste type response. I'm not trying to set up a kind of, you know, logic chopping versus passion dualism. I'm saying that the really interesting features of how our conscience prompts us is that it presents to us a reality that we try to become more truthful and accurate about. So I would. Yeah, I'd be in agreement with that.

[C]

Julian, does imagination talk?

[B]

Absolutely, it does, you know, and I think that when Mark was saying that, he felt that the kind of thing he talked about when religious people got it in a way that atheists don't. Well, he might be right, but it'd be a shame if they didn't because there's no reason why they shouldn't. If you take one of the great non religious moral philosophers, it's David Hume. And David Hume, of course based his philosophy very firmly on the idea that reason by itself isn't going to get you anywhere with morality. You know, reason isn't a motivation to be good at all. And you know, along with other people of his time like Hutcheson and Smith, he was very essential to his idea really was empathy, which is partly a case of imagination, being able to put yourself in the shoes of another and to understand what it is for them to feel. So I certainly do agree with them. And I also think, by the way, that's, that's why if you're thinking about morality, there are lots of resources other than, as you say, rational arguments we should use. I think that fiction, literature, film, drama, the arts have a tremendous role to play in enabling us to expand. I think they really do. Moral philosophy, actually, I think a lot of moral philosophy is done through fiction and literature. All that's true, and I'm pleased to say that doesn't mean we have to then divide ourselves on that issue depending on whether we believe in God or not.

[C]

Hume of course, famously said that the philosophical and metaphysical conundrums that fevered his mind in his study, that he was able to set them aside when he went to playgammon.

[B]

It's because I'm sitting next to the microphone.

[C]

The atheist trusts modern technology in a.

[B]

Way that some of us.

[C]

I was reminding the speakers of what Hume said about his ability, that in his study his mind became fevered with metaphysical speculation. But he was able very easily to set those metaphysical fevers to one side when he went to play backgammon with his friends. And that touches on something Julian said a little while ago about what implications meta ethical reflections on the foundations of morality actually have for the first order practice of moral reasoning. I wonder if you could say a bit more about that because you do allow, and this is something I think Julian slightly conflated or skated over in his opening. You do allow that there are lots of atheist philosophers who are also moral realists who accept that morality is not just a matter of personal preference.

[D]

Absolutely. And I think Hume's really interesting on this because he does kind of set up this dichotomy between, you know, we behave as if this kind of sympathetic attention to the world has a claim on us. But then in the seminar, I'm not quite sure. I mean, when we go into the study, do we realize that's not true and we just don't follow through its implications or what's. I think what I'm arguing for is that we ought to agree with Hume that the sentiment have a claim on us, but they have a claim on us because they are disclosing a reality.

[B]

Point on that. But the way in which the more theoretical aspects do have an impact, and I think that is to do with the widespread assumption. I mean, people actually do have a meta ethical position, which is moral relativism, if you like. I mean, a lot of it is now often assumed by people that morality is ultimately just a matter of preference, cultural relativism, whatever it might be. And that, you know, you can't just say some things are true or not. Now that I think false, overly simplistic view of morality does have practical implications and it does make it harder to have serious moral debate because when things get tough, people then just sort of go, well, that's your view, you know, say, well, really that's my view, you know. So I think if there is a role to play for the more, if you like, theoretical aspects of this in the public square, I think it is important, and this is where I think what Angus is talking about. It's good to get this out there. It is important for getting people to question that.

[C]

Mark, did you want to come in?

[F]

Yeah, well, perhaps just to say again, I feel like the virtue ethics point would want to critique the approaches to ethics that somehow think that ethics is done slightly outside of life and then applied back into life. So deontological ethics looks for what's right and wrong in a reasoned kind of way. What we must do by duty, that's kind of done somewhere else. And then you kind of try and live it. Utilitarian ethics tries to measure things like pleasure and happiness and so on and then apply that somehow to life. I think virtue ethics, certainly, as Einstein anyway, wants you to reflect on life itself and to develop this capacity for what the Greeks called practical wisdom, which is something that is partly about reason and reflection, but it's also about, you know, the knockabout ups and downs of community life. It's about drawing on traditions from the people that have come before. And it's about education of desire and developing an aesthetic ability as well as a rational ability. And so, yeah, when You. That's something that's. With this kind of quick turn to metaphysics, as if it's going to somehow be decided there or should be decided there. Again, I feel that probably that's a rather secondary issue. It's bound to happen. That's the kind of nature of the creature we are. But when in ethics, you lose science about life itself, and that's the primary material, if you like, of ethics, then that feels to me like something's gone wrong.

[B]

Well, I do think there's something very, very right in that. I mean, I don't think there are many people who choose to do the right thing because they've hit upon the right moral theory. But a lot of people end up doing the wrong thing because they bought into the wrong moral theory. I think. You see what I mean? You need kind of a bad moral theory to be truly bad a lot of the time, I think. And if you do, look at the people we most admire a lot of the time, and the people who are sort of moral paragons. So again, Mark's right to talk about this. Rather than look at the arguments, look at people we consider to be good. And, you know, you often find if they do say anything theoretical about their moral commitments, they tend to be very sort of vague and loose and general things we can all agree with. So I think that is an important point, actually. But not to say, you know, there's an interplay between we behave in the world, we try and live in the world. And often I think the moral reasoning comes out as a reaction to the problems we then face. Because a lot of the time it's quite obvious what's right and wrong. Actually, it's quite obvious I shouldn't get up and throw water over Mark or anyone else. But when we get issues around, facts change, society changes things, like it becomes possible to conduct abortions and so forth. In a way, then things become difficult to us and that's when we're forced back to reflect. But most of the time, actually, morality goes on. People behave well on the basis of little more than the fact that they are decent people who don't need a theory to tell them that certain things are wrong.

[C]

That's quite a powerful rejoinder to your position, Angus, because the claim is that morality is imprisoned, good shape, we all get by.

[F]

I actually wouldn't say that. I think that we live in a tragic world where people want to do good things and end up doing bad things and so on. I think that's absolutely clear to me, anyway, so the Point is.

[D]

Not.

[F]

Well, this is a load of us. So forgive this joke, but there's a certain complacency. You know, we're all kind of more or less decent and we can just get on with things if, you know, I wouldn't want to be associated with that, actually. It just seems to me that to be the case that in spite of all the evils that take place, we can still have a sense of the good. That's part of the strange paradox of what it is to be human and that to try and develop this attention to what's good is. I mean, it's not so much moral progress, because I think these things are cyclical. I think in every generation, as it were, almost, people start again. Somehow we have to make ourselves in every generation to become moral people. It's why the education of children is so important and so on. Plato said that moral education is not like what we call physics now. You can't, as it were, have a ton of a jug of moral education and pour it into someone like you can pour water into a glass. He said it has to be done from within life. And that's going to be a tragic situation because people want to do well but don't do well often.

[C]

Let's try and restate the point then, in a slightly less controversial way, and I might be attributing this view to you. It clearly is the case that human beings have capacity to reason morally. And it clearly is the case that a lot of the time we don't reason particularly well. And it probably is the case, as a moral realist would argue, that reasoning morally involves a kind of what Mark would call transcendence. That's to say, a recognition of something bigger than ourselves. What's not clear, and I take this to be one of the points that Julian was making, is that why does that entail that recognition that human beings have those capacities to reason morally? Why does that entail a commitment to the.

[D]

Well, I think it entails. I mean, the tricky thing is if we're doing this process, which we can call reasoning, but also is a matter of attending. I mean, I think I completely agree that we're not. We're talking about a process which is about opening ourselves to some kind of reality. And that's both how it's. That's how it presents. It's not that one. We need to argue people into the theory. This is absolutely how people reflect morally. That does seem to the phenomenology of it, what that feels like. The logic of it is that we're trying to get something right which is beyond what we currently believe. That's why there is this possibility of potentially quite a radical critique of what our culture thinks. So I suppose the question is.

[B]

We.

[D]

Need a metaphysics that does justice to what's going on in that ethics. And if it looks like what's going on is we are trying to attend to something which is real, which in some sense, some sense can stand in judgment over us, can inspire us, and I'm not sure that a non realist picture does justice to that.

[C]

But you make a very important observation on the way to that conclusion, that there are attempts to make secular sense of that reality. It's not the case that we're given the choice of either atheist anti realism or immoral realism.

[D]

Absolutely. And I think the problem if we kind of get into this and look at how secular philosophy does this is that when you look at any individual working out of that, it either ends up not being able to do justice. You're right. The interesting work is in the middle between the two extremes of someone like John Mackey's error theory and the kind of position I would hold at the other extreme. But is there any territory in the middle that does justice to that reality of morality and doesn't have the problem I was setting up? And I don't think when you look at them in detail, they work.

[C]

Julian, before we give the audience the chance to get involved, do you want to respond to that?

[B]

Well, I mean, I think one's got to be very careful about what conclusions you reach on the basis of how things seem to us. Because also, I mean, I'm not quite sure that's right. I mean, because I think people do have a sense clearly that when they're trying to behave well, they're trying to do the right thing, that it's not just a matter of their own preference. But in a way, you know, this is the same for all sorts of things which a lot of people think, you know, to go the other extreme, even things which people think are just mere preference aren't, you know, actually, because if you think about music, for example, we do appreciate when it comes down to it, people have different tastes and so forth, but not many people really in their heart of hearts believe that it's genuinely the case that what I might warble at you now, should I choose to do so, is as good as a Mozart aria or something. I mean, clearly they don't. So, you know, and again, if you think about what it means to try and when you're trying to create art. People do have a sense that they're trying to do better. They're trying to do better. They mean they're trying to get it right in the sense. They're trying to sort of like, I don't know, do something which is correct or true as opposed to false. They're simply trying to do better. And I think that with moralities like that, the phenomenology of it, if you like, which is the true part of the phenomenology, is that we understand that if we want to do well, that can be difficult. We have to try and do better. And it's not just a matter of our own opinion whether we've succeeded or not. There are factors to do with other people's judgments, objective facts, etc. Which impinge on it. But none of that, I think, need entail that. You have to say, well, the only way to make sense of that is to think that moral truths are like scientific truths. They're true or they're false and we have knowledge of them and so forth. I think we can understand it in a way, in a way which is sympathetic to the way Mark was talking. We understand it in the sense that we have a sense of what it means to live better or to live worse, or to do better or to do worse.

[C]

Thanks, Julian. Notwithstanding what Julian just said, I think you'll all agree with me that the panel have made a pretty good fist of getting things right this evening. Now it's your opportunity to ask questions. I'm going to make the ritual request that you ask a question and don't make a statement or deliver a speech. And there are roving knights, roving. So we'll take first question over here, please, and try and keep your questions succinct.

[D]

Almost all the atrocities throughout history have.

[F]

Been justified on the basis of moral absolutism.

[D]

There has been, you know, absolute goods and bads, and people who were doing those atrocities saw themselves as agents, basically, who were spreading the good.

[F]

So the question is, do you think.

[D]

Historically speaking, moral realism opens the door for violence? I mean, I think. I mean, no. I think it's clearly true that people can be in the grip of appalling moral convictions, and that can do a great deal of damage. But I think if you want to articulate why people ought to be willing to reconsider their views, why the norms of your current community and your culture might get things wrong, you need some kind of moral realism. You need some sense that what you currently think, what your culture currently thinks might be wrong. So I actually think in the end moral realism is behind our sense that there is some truth beyond those things. But I mean, clearly people who've been moral realists have done bad things. That's not in dispute. But I think that the question is.

[F]

How.

[D]

We need to make sense of morality as attending to something that's beyond what we currently think. And I still find it hard to see how that's going to be done on a metaphysics which doesn't include some kind of objectivity to moral truth. It's not going to be precisely the same as scientific truth, but it is nonetheless going to be something which is not simply constructed out of our preferences, the norms of our culture. And I haven't yet, I don't think we've yet heard what that would be if it wasn't full blown moral realism.

[C]

Mark, should we be worried about moral absolutism?

[F]

Yeah, for sure. And I think that this is another reason where a religious tradition can be of help. And again, it needn't be exclusively the case, but it seems to me that a proper understanding of God is always going to put what we human beings think about something such things, whether it be metaphysics or morality, under judgment because it says, you know, it lies beyond us that we never quite know. We strive, we hope, we, you know, work on ourselves, if you like. We take part in various kind of practices, community practices, church going, all the rest. But God, if you think you've got it, then you're worshipping an idol in the theological sense. And so the moral equivalent would be if you think you've worked it out, then you're putting yourself on God's throne of judgment, you might say, rather than realizing that we stand before that throne to use a pictorial image. And so properly understood, I think that the theological position calls everything into question. But, you know, it's absolutely clear and you're absolutely right. People identify themselves with God, think they're speaking for God, and that is the terrible risk.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's not necessarily that any kind of moral position can lend itself to the misuse. I mean, you can be a moral realist, but as I think Angus does, a caution in his, in his book, that accepting that our ability to know those moral truths is deeply flawed. As long as you accept that second point, as long as you accept that human capacity to understand it is extremely limited, then you should be immunised from being overconfident about it. But then I think that sits slightly uncomfortably with the idea that we have been designed with the moral faculties to be able to perceive these things. I mean, if you do believe God has made us in such a way that we are capable of understanding moral truths that might lead to the kind of overconfidence which might lead to it. On the other hand, yes. If you go too far to the other end of the pole and you see these things as a matter of cultural preferences and everything, you might either become complacent. So we're not going to get, not going to bother with what's going on in the rest of the world. Let's leave it up to them. If they're murdering their citizens, so what? Or you might then end up in another way of thinking. You know that. Well, you know, it's basically, it's a battle of wills. That's what morality boils down to. Whose will is greater? Let's assert ours. I mean, none of these things are inevitable. So I think whatever your position is, in a sense you need something. I do kind of think that fundamentally it's going to be more basis of how things like, again, things like Mark was talking about issues, more character really. How seriously do you take the need to be moral? How much self doubt do you have? How much are you willing to question your motivations? These are the things which I think often make the difference about whether people do the right or wrong thing. And that's kind of independent to what their fundamental moral theory is really.

[C]

Thank you. There's a veritable forest of hands at the back. Yeah. Oh, we'll go there and then, and then the person behind you. Sorry, we'll take you first, sir.

[F]

All right, thank you.

[C]

There's a moral dialogue.

[G]

Okay, thanks very much. Yeah. Dr. Begini made a very interesting point that the morality evolves. And I think, and history, I think we are witness to this fact that, that morality evolves. And, and if that is the case, then of course the moral realism comes into question. But moral realism comes into question from other angle also. Now you said that I shouldn't speak much, but I got to what you all said this, otherwise it doesn't make sense.

[C]

What I will ask you, as succinct as you can though.

[G]

Okay, all right, fine. If morality doesn't, I mean if we accept that morality evolves. So what are the new pressures on this, on the, on the new morality that must be worked that, that we must work for in the light of the new world, that is the world where we are getting. We are losing our innocence. More of us are becoming what you call atheists and we're living in a world which is where I mean different religions are juxtaposed to one another. In such situation, how do we. How do we, what you call, find the morality which will help to coexist. Thank you.

[C]

So morality evolves, Angus, it changes. What implications does that have for the account you've given of there being a moral reality to which our moral statements correspond?

[D]

Well, I think that, I mean, that depends if you think that there are questions on which that's constituted a growth in moral knowledge. That looks like quite a case for being a realist. If you think that what societies believe at one point and another point aren't just equally valid, but that actually there are some things we get right today that were wrong before. And in addition, there may be fundamental blind spots in our current view that there may be questions that people will look back in 100 or 200 years and think we can't believe that people around now got those wrong. Then it does look like implicit in what's going on is an attempt to attend to a reality that has a claim on us and it's beyond what we currently happen to think. So I would take that to be something counting for moral realism, not against it.

[C]

Julian. Moral evolution, Yeah.

[B]

I think in practice again, it probably does not get a neatly line up on what particular moral commitment you have in terms of realism or not. I mean, the main point is that two things change. Our understanding changes of certain things, such as, for example, beliefs about the different capacities of different races, as people called it, capacities of animals and so forth. So our knowledge changes, our understanding changes and also social situations change. So you'd have to be a relativist to believe that as the world changes and as social structures change, it may be a problem appropriate to alter certain rules of conduct within it. You could be a relativist, but you could also be a realist who says that, you know, the real moral objective rules obviously are context specific and therefore you can't. In the same way as you wouldn't give the same food to someone whether they were 2 years old or 25 year old athlete, you wouldn't apply the same moral principle if you were living in a small village isolated from the rest of the world or if you're living in an interdependent world. So I think, you know, I don't think it's ultimately a question of the. Whether you're more realist or not. You don't. Certainly that's not the crucial thing about whether or not you accept that things change and rules are differently appropriate for different situations.

[C]

Mark, did you want to come in?

[F]

No, I mean, just more generally, perhaps. Does morality evolve? I mean, I'm someone that likes to read Plato and Aristotle, who wrote two and a half thousand years ago, and I still feel they speak more powerfully to life now than many other philosophical documents you might care to read. I think the conditions of life change and so the struggle is always to know what to make of it, as it were, bringing your whole person to bear on these questions. But I suspect morality is perhaps more cyclical. If we're talking about evolution, not in an evolution of the species kind of way over millions of years, but over hundreds, maybe a couple of millennia, I suspect it's more cyclical and different questions come up at different times. And then the conditions of life change as well. Clearly Plato didn't think about how to tweet and the morality of that, but.

[B]

Well, actually highly immoral.

[F]

They had a very successfully functioning vision of gay marriage, you might say. So perhaps we have got something to.

[B]

Learn on these issues too.

[C]

There was a question right at the back. Yes, thanks.

[H]

Still, on the topic of the evolution of morality, if we talk about the evolution of morality, are we assuming that it has an origin? And if so, where is that origin coming from? And talking about moral imagination, or we could call it conscience and virtue ethics. Does that also imply that people are more moral than others? And if so, where does the benchmark come from?

[C]

Who wants to.

[F]

Yeah, I mean, I think some people are more moral than others. Yeah. Seems to me to be subliminally the case. I mean, you could pick an extreme. Hitler versus a Nelson Mandela, for example.

[G]

And.

[F]

Where it comes from. And for me it's more like, you know, you'd have to tell the story of their lives almost, I suppose, and put them on a couch and understand their psychology and so on to telling complete story about that. But it is about the business of how we cultivate ourselves and the kind of attention that we are able to bring to bear upon things. And there will be, I guess there will be external factors to the life of the individual, the place and the time in which they're born and so on. But yeah, I think that it seems to be self evident in the case that some people are more moral in terms of moral exemplars than others.

[C]

Yes, Angus, there were two questions there. Where morality comes from, what the origin of it is, and are some people more moral than others?

[D]

I mean, I think on the second question, not much to add there really that's pretty clear. I mean.

[B]

Well.

[D]

I think it's about a claim of goodness upon us. It's about a claim of a reality which lies beyond. At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, it lies beyond what we currently believe. It lies beyond our cultural norms. It's something we're trying to attend to. It's something we're trying to respond to. And it's something which we can meaningfully talk about. People and times and cultures and milieu is getting more right and wrong. It seems to me that that's how it presents itself to us. I don't think this is about imposing some kind of seminar room moral theory on reality. This is the best way of describing what we are doing when we seek to become more morally sensitive, truthful people.

[B]

Yeah, it's good you brought up evolution again, because I think there's a real problem with understanding what the theory of evolution has to do with. With morality. And I think this is partly a problem of perhaps some overzealous evolutionary psychologists and theorists who are trying to sort of like argue that basically you don't need anything other than the theory of evolution to explain morality. And I think that's the case now. I think the proper understanding is that the fundamental capacities which enable us to think morally must have emerged in some way from things which are product of natural selection, such as empathy and so forth. Now, that's fine. And also some particular rules. So again, certain practices might have got going on the basis that group cooperation was better for us than individual things. All these things help explaining how things got started. It's about the seeding of morality in culture. But then once seeded, it can take on a life of its own because we're capable of reflection and action and so forth. And so, I mean, this is a point because, you know, I don't want to get too sort of picky here, but, you know, I mean, Angus says in his pamphlet, you know, what's clear from this argument, this chapter, is that selective advantage cannot explain our capacity for discerning the moral truth. Well, I don't think. I think that's too much to ask for it. Selective advantage by itself shouldn't be looked at as the thing which explains why we are moral or not. Selective advantage only need explain how that whole process of moral reasoning could have got started in the first place. And from that point on, we're talking about culture, which exists on a sort of evolution, an evolved basis, an evolved platform. Patricia Churchland, funnily enough, who's quoted in the book, who's often held up to be a paradigm of the most nutty reductionist thinking. Going actually is no such thing. And she's written a book recently about this and she's very, very clear that all you're doing in neuroethics is you're explaining how, as it were, the brain provides the platform upon which morality can work. And that's it. Then at that point, the neuroethicist shuts up and they leave actual working out of what's right and wrong to other people.

[C]

The problem is that too many neuroethicists haven't shut up.

[B]

Sure. Okay. Yeah, agreed. Agreed.

[C]

I think we'd better take another. There's a question in the second row. And then. Yes, behind you, Matthew. And then we'll talk.

[B]

Oh, hi.

[E]

I've just got a question, kind of more specifically for Julian, I suspect, with Angus. He mentions a kind of a prescriptive element to morality, that one ought to act in a certain way, that there is an onus upon the individuals to act in a certain way. And I noticed that you use the term bad for certain things. And I guess my question is, to put it a bit bluntly and maybe a little bit naively, is what is the reason for morality kind of sans theism and sans that objectivity? And does it merely boil down to something that evokes a feeling, a negative feeling in another individual? And if so, what is the onus upon me as myself.

[B]

To care?

[E]

And why, and I'd rather you didn't just resort to hurting people is bad?

[B]

Well, you know, in a way, the answer to that is the same way people try and talk to children, really. Okay, so, you know, don't. Don't kick your brother. Or why not? Can't you see that it's hurting him? Yeah. Has he done anything wrong? No. Would you like it if he kicked you? No. You say these kind of things. So do you think you should kick him? If the person then turns around and says, don't see why not? Where do you go from that? Now, I don't think in a sense the giving of reasons, what you're doing is you're giving reasons. But ultimately, if someone can't see those as reasons for acting, I don't think you can close that gap by any kind of further logical statement. You might be able to close it by saying, you know. So like, well, even if you say, which you know, Angus is not so crude as to say, you know, well, you shouldn't do that because if you do, God's going to punish You, Angus, that's the worst reason for being moral. Even that someone could turn around and say, I don't care. What do you say to that? I don't care. I think you offer reasons and I think that the reasons should be enough. Unless you've got some kind of wire missing in your head, you know.

[C]

So this is such a question about the binding.

[D]

Yeah, No, I mean, I agree that. I agree that if someone can't. I mean, because otherwise the danger is that you get into offering prudential reasons for what is in fact an ethical claim. If someone doesn't see that. But it's the question of what the nature of the seeing is. I mean, you've given this account. Yeah. You're quite rightly saying that the historical explanation of why we have the kind of moral beliefs we have isn't going to be given entirely by evolutionary theory. And that's not some kind of defect, that culture will be involved in that. But that doesn't account. I mean, once you stand back and say, okay, I've understood that, I'm part of this thing that is historically developed, nonetheless, from within it, we behave as if we are responding to something that has an actual claim on us. And I just don't yet see in your account, Julian, how. Which I think is behind this question. What's your sense of what that.

[B]

To be brief, I think it's more, to put it the other way around. I don't think it was added by saying, and this is a moral truth. So if you've got that list of reasons, can't you see it's hurting him? Can't you blah, blah. If you then say, can't you see but this is morally wrong, the person will go, oh, now I get it. I see. Do you see what I mean? They understand it's morally wrong because of all those things. There isn't an additional fact which you are presenting to someone when you add the fact that it is morally wrong. I think it's just a way of like summing up all the reasons we have for not doing it.

[C]

Mark, do you have a dog in this fight?

[B]

No.

[F]

I mean, just the points of moral emotions, I think they're not necessary. You know, people can bear a lot of shame and carry on doing what they're doing. They can bear a lot of guilt, carry on doing what they're doing. But they have some say in this reasoned debate as well.

[C]

There's a question here and then there's a question. So we'll take this one first and.

[A]

Then you thank you all very much. I guess I want to push Angus on clarifying the heart of the argument here, because if it is indeed true that theism or metaphysics make some kind of difference, and it seems to me that in order for your argument to have any bite, that's really what you're saying and what I understand you'd be saying, but you haven't really specified, at least in the talk, whether the specificities of the theism or the metaphysics matter. In other words, are you a monotheist or a polytheist? Does that matter? If it doesn't matter, doesn't that make you, at some kind of meta level, a relativist who is arguing for a metaphysical moral realism and contradict the very foundational principles of your argument? So I guess I want you to.

[B]

Kind of.

[A]

Say what really matters and what kind of first principles are at work here and whether there are other first principles which you think are not supportable.

[D]

So there are three thoughts here. I mean, the first thought is that the way we all do ethics, what's actually going on is best made sense of by saying that we are attempting to attend to something that's real and true beyond ourselves. So that's the first thought then. The second thought is that theistic accounts are going to be able to explain why humans are capable of discerning that reality, not just why we happen to have some kind of moral culture beyond what's selectively advantageous, but it'll explain the fact that we take ourselves to be getting something right, that we're responding to something real. That's how we experience it, and that's how you make sense of what we're doing when we reason morally so. And then there's a third question, which would be, I think a separate one, which would be you'd have to get into the specifics of the varieties of theistic views, which one you might think is true, but that doesn't undercut. I mean, that's a third question. The first thought is simply that we're all committed to, in practice, some kind of realism. And the second thought is that only those accounts of the world which have some rule for a kind of providential harmony can make sense of that. Then you might have other reasons for deciding which ones you thought were more compelling. But that's the core of the argument. Julian, you.

[C]

Sounded like you're a bit dismissive about meta ethical questions earlier. Does that what Angus has just said affect anything you've been arguing so far? Presumably the recognition that only theism can explain Humans capacity for moral reasoning doesn't help you when you're trying to explain to your kid brother why he shouldn't be kicking.

[B]

Yeah, no, I mean. I mean, as I said earlier, why I didn't think that kind of worked. But I mean, I just want to pick up because on a point there, which is this. I think the key point is this sense that the challenge that keeps coming back is, you know, aren't we responding to something real when we're saying we ought to do something? And isn't that something you can't get to unless you accept amoral realism? And then, you know, there are other reasons for adding theism to that. And I guess, you know, the answer to that is no, because we are responding to something real. We're responding to lots of real things. When we're. When we're thinking morally and ethically, what we're responding to are the reality of people's lives going well or badly and in ways which are not just about pleasure or happiness or so forth. We are more sophisticated than that. We can understand that, you know, and so therefore, yes, there are. We are constantly. Morality is entirely about responding to things that are real. But it does not follow from that that claims about what is right or wrong have. Have to exist as real truths about the world, as it were. The things morality is responding to are real truths. Morality is then our attempt to make. To respond to that and to make judgments about what the best way to deal with it is.

[C]

Mark, reality. What's this reality we're responding to when we reason morally?

[F]

Well, to not quite answer that question, but maybe tangentially to relate to it, this is where the notion of faith, I think, maybe has a bearing. Because if you take the tragic point of view, which is that human beings always get it wrong, they always misunderstand. They're capable of vices as much as they're capable of virtues. We don't, as it were. If we are tracking something that's good and that's real, we don't track it very well. Often, you might say, or we can mistrack too. I think to remain sort of hopeful and courageous and even optimistic about life requires a kind of faith. And, you know, in the Christian tradition, this would be talk about the kingdom of God. The ancient Greeks had a kind of faith in their tragic plays when they thought that the gods would admire the hero because of their dignity and so something terrible would happen to them. But because of the way they coped with it, they would be remembered by the gods and immortalized in the stars, if you like. There was a kind of faith. The converse is the kind of moral pessimism which I guess is summed up by some readings of Freud in the 20th century. John Gray, who people here at the LSE will know. He would fall into this camp, I think, where people do bad things, and that's just the way it is, if you like. I'm not quite sure what keeps you going, apart from maybe a curiosity about the horrendous spectacle of human history, perhaps, but. Yeah, so I think faith perhaps has a bearing in the question that hasn't really been mentioned yet, and maybe even relates to this issue of how we do or don't relate to this kind of transcendent reality.

[C]

I think we have time for two more questions. There's one here. Yes, and then I'll take that.

[H]

Returning to the point about why, if we are created, why aren't we designed, perfect? Well, if we were all made perfect, then what purpose would we really have?

[C]

Do you want to tackle that question about perfection?

[D]

I mean, I think it's clear that it's clearly a difficult question for any kind of theism why there's the level of suffering there is in the world. I think we can begin to talk about some of the reasons why perfection might be something we need to grow into. But that's clearly a kind of deep issue. Can I just return to one? I just wanted to ask Julian, because I'm aware we don't have too long. How do you end up helping yourself to this notion of facts about things going? Well.

[F]

It seems to me that you.

[D]

Do want to have more than purely the kind of physical and sociological facts. You want to talk about communities attending sensitively to better and worse ways of living. Now, I mean, I don't want to say that those facts are somehow the same as scientific facts. They precisely aren't. It's a different kind of reality. But all that moral realism is saying is that it's real, that communities can make better and worse judgments about what's of value. And I don't quite see how we help ourselves to that without beginning to have a metaphysics.

[B]

Well, if that's all moral realism is, then moral realism extends. I mean, I put a spectrum, didn't I? Because I was saying that I quote points of various points in the pamphlet where you're contrasting moral realism with the view that things are mere preferences, just matters of what we choose to do and so forth. And my whole point at the beginning was there was to say that I think that's the false dichotomy that when responding to things in the world we are doing more than just expressing mere preferences. That is not to say that moral truths have this status of being. Statements which we can say true, false, are completely independent of our practices. They're more than just rooted in individual preferences, but they're less than sort of facts that can be established things that.

[D]

Yeah, but don't they then potentially stand in judgment over our practice? Can't our practices be more shallow and have greater depth? And when that's true, aren't we then attending to, in seeking harmony with a reality that is beyond us? I just, I don't quite see how we avoid ending up with.

[B]

Well, when you start getting beyond us. That's the point. I mean, in a sense things are answerable to more than ourselves doesn't mean they're anything beyond us. I mean, for example, I mean to get science right means that we have to be answerable to the way the world really is. That doesn't mean there's anything over and above the physical world in the same kind of way. I think to get to morality right, you do have to be answerable to more than just your own preference, more than just your own taste and so forth. But that's not to say there's anything to morality other than the, the facts and realities of the physical world, and that's that. Now if that's moral realism, then I guess I am a moral realist after all. But that's not normally the way to.

[D]

Say scientific realism would be correct descriptions of the scientific world. So I mean, if we're going to talk about moral truth, it's going to be presumably correct description of something, a deeper characterization and capturing of something more than the scientific world. So what is this reality that is more or less accurately being captured, attended to? Your whole point is it's not a kind of reductionist scientific view. So I just want more of a picture of the metaphysics of this.

[B]

Well, what, what's being captured? I wouldn't say it's a question that moral truths which are being captured and there's a moral reality which is being expressed, the realities are the realities of, of the world. That's all that they are. And we try, we live well, the world is the people around us, the things in it. And we do try and live better, worse, etc. I mean, we might be approaching a point where we're getting to some perhaps too nitty gritty about where the difference is. But you know, as I say, if you're going to gloss it in certain ways. I would be a realist in that sense, but that's clearly not a way which requires an atheistic commitment to be a realist in that thin sense, I don't think.

[C]

Can we take one more question? There was one at the back here. And then. I'm afraid we're going to have to stop so very quickly. If you can.

[B]

Thank you.

[G]

Yeah.

[I]

Maybe it's just my own personality, but I'm quite drawn by Marx talking about the tragic and maybe coming to tie in with the question earlier. Question for you, Julian. How do you understand the tragic? So in the chap's example, you said, if he can't see it, everyone can see it, unless maybe he's got a wire loose or something. How do you understand the sort of ontology of a person in that? The good? I should. I wouldn't do. Kant talked about radical evil. But how do you understand the sort of tragic hope that makes some sense? Is it just a wire loose, as you said?

[B]

No, no. I mean, there's the wireless. There are other people who are just simply incapable of perceiving the very fundamental things about why you should be right or wrong. And that is the why. And that's the way we talk about it. Psychopaths, sociopaths, you know, we consider it a form of mental illness, if you like, when people are literally incapable. But I think the more interesting form of the tragic, and I do agree it's there, and it's good to come back to this because I don't think we should be complacent when I say that the good thing is most of us are capable of decency and most of the time we function. It doesn't mean that there aren't all sorts of ways in which we can be diverted from that. And I do think that a lot of the. If you look at the tragedy of morality, if you like, one moral tragedy, is that although in a sense the requirements of moral decency are in some ways very straightforward, it's remarkably easy for us to be diverted from them by simple things like greed, shortsightedness, panic, self interest. I mean, I talked earlier about how fiction is useful for this. I'm a big fan of the films of the Coen brothers. Right. I think if you look at the films of the Coen brothers time and again, you see how the really good people are just people who do nothing more than maintain their ordinary decency. And the people who are bad are either psychopaths or they are otherwise normal people who through a series of events, allow themselves to get tempted away from the path and do things which are greedy, avaricious, and it often has horrible consequences. So it's not right. Mark is right to say we shouldn't be complacent. I think moral decency is something which is much less complicated than moral theory, but much more difficult to live than we might think.

[C]

Mark, do you want to moral decency? I think that's a good place to stop. It's much harder than we all think. I'm sure you want to join me in thanking the three speakers, particularly Angus, the author of the pamphlet, for a fascinating discussion. Thank you all.