What Counts as Evidence for a Moral Belief?

For a couple of years now I've been perplexed by the following problem: What counts as evidence for or justifies a moral belief?  Even in asking the question I'm a bit confused because are two possible interpretations of the question (possibly more). We might say that what justifies a moral belief is that it is well-supported by an argument. In other words, it's supported by some other beliefs that are presented in a systematic way. But this isn't a very satisfying answer because inevitably we are going to wonder what supports the justifying beliefs. There's a danger of regress which I'll address later.

What I really mean to ask is, what sorts of things count as evidence for a moral claim? Arguments using other beliefs are one sort of 'thing'. But is that it? Are beliefs the only things that can justify beliefs? I'm compelled by the view that we should admit other sorts of things as evidence, namely, emotions.

At the face of it, it sounds crazy. Imagine you're in court and you believe someone wronged you and the judge asks you to please justify your claim.  "What evidence do you have for your claim that Mr. X wronged you?" he asks. "Well," you reply "it just feels like he did." I doubt your case will do to well.

But let's pause for a moment and think about how, from a very early age, moral education proceeds. One way we do things (both as children and as adults) is that we offer arguments and introduce facts in order to support moral conclusions. For example, when a child punches another child we might explain to him that you shouldn't punch other people because punching hurts them. And hurting people is baaaaaad!

On this model we support our claim "one ought not to punch others" with other beliefs. If you read much of the philosophical literature on moral reasoning you might think this is the only tool available for moral education.

A little reflection reveals that it isn't. I submit that in large part support for moral claims comes from the emotions. That is, emotions led support to moral claims and therefore are a kind of evidence. Let's revisit the child puncher to see why. There's a much simpler--and I would argue--more effective way to get him to see why it's true that he shouldn't punch other people. We ask him "how would you feel if someone did that to you?"  No argument needed.  And I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that he sees the strength of the moral claim more quickly and forcefully than if only the first method had been used.

Appeals to emotions as evidence aren't restricted to the moral education of children. As adults we appeal to emotions in conjunction with arguments as well as when arguments fail to convince others of our moral claim. In fact, we often use the same technique we employ with children. When arguments fail us, to the recalcitrant party we ask "how would you feel if I did that to you?" When the other party makes a genuine effort to introspect on what it would feel like to have x done to them they might come to endorse the claim that they shouldn't x. The change of heart comes about without appeal to argument or beliefs as evidence.

Here's another way we might think that emotions are being used as evidence for a moral position. Most people are aware of the fact that animals are often mistreated on factory farms. They also believe that it would be wrong to support any institution that mistreats animals. Nevertheless, as is often the case, many people don't come to oppose factory farms until they are actually shown videos and images of what occurs inside some of the farms. 

What's going on here? It's not as though they acquired any new beliefs. The already knew that animals are often mistreated in factory farms and they already believed that it's wrong to support institutions that mistreat animals.  My suggestion is that emotion has played an important evidential role in their position change.  So, more generally, it looks like emotions play an evidential role in moral reasoning. It is, admittedly, another step to say that the emotional response to the horrific treatment of animals justifies their changed belief. I will address this concern shortly. 

I want to suggest one more way in which I think emotions count as evidence for moral claims. Consider a case of a conservative religious opponent to gay marriage (is there any other kind?). Let's call him Dick. Dick dearly loves his daughter. At some point in her adult life, Dick's daughter confesses to her father that she is gay. Fairly quickly Dick reverses his position on gay marriage. What happened here? Did Dick all of a sudden come in contact with a new, never-before-heard, compelling argument for marriage equality? Did he acquire some new beliefs that support the claim that marriage equality is just? Doubtful. It's also doubtful that he just learned that he has the belief "I love my daughter and I want her to be happy."  No, that's not likely it.

Likely, it is his love for his daughter and his desire that she be happy that's doing the work. In fact, it's not implausible that in his entire set of beliefs the only belief that changed was his belief regarding the permissibility of gay marriage.

What I've outlined are a few ways which I think capture how emotions are employed in our everyday moral reasoning. As I alluded above, it is a separate question as to whether emotions ought to be used as evidence; that is to say, whether emotions able to justify moral claims. I don't want to argue for that positive claim here, but I do think it would be odd to say that in our moral reasoning we ought never to take into account our emotions. 

For this reason I simply want to defend a conditional claim:  if our emotions can sometimes count as evidence for moral claims then several contemporary models of moral reasoning can't adequately account all the ways in which we come to endorse moral claims.

In closing, I want to flag some potential problems with my view. First, I want to quickly return to considering emotions as justificatory. From the fact that we use emotions in moral reasoning it doesn't follow necessarily that we ought to. We might think that emotions can lead us to bad moral conclusions, not just good ones. To say that we ought to use emotions as evidence I'd have to show that our emotions get it right more often than they get it wrong.  Or at least pick out the types of cases where they tend to be more reliable than not. I'd also probably have to go through each emotion because some (possibly the reactive emotions) might be less reliable than other emotions. There's no reason to suppose that each emotion is as likely to lead us to a 'good' conclusion.

And while I'm at it, there's a further problem. My account presupposes a moral view. For example, in the gay marriage case we (most people reading my blog) think that Dick's love for his daughter got him to the right answer only because we happen to endorse marriage equality. Someone who didn't endorse that view would say that Dick's love for his daughter blinded him to the truth.  On the other hand, any theory of evidence will have to contend with this same problem. Whether a belief leads one to endorse the 'right' position will depend in large part on what you (dear reader) think the right position is. 

But on the third hand, there's no need to suppose that a belief has to be true in order to be justified. We can be anti-realist about moral claims and still think that for moral claims some things count as better evidence than others and some claims are better justified than others.

Meh...ethics is complicated.

Critical Thinking: Arguers and Systems of Belief

Review: 
In the last post we gave a formal definition to an argument:  a set of reasons and evidence that support a conclusion.  We also discussed the two main components of an argument: the premises and the conclusion.  Recall that the conclusion is the central claim that the arguer is trying to make.  If they do their job well, they will support that claim with relevant premises (i.e., reasons and evidence).  If they don't, they might as well just be waiving their hands in the air and jumping up and down.

In this next section we will look at how certain facts about the person or group making an argument influences various aspects their argument.

Arguers and Systems of Belief
Overview
As much as many of us would like to think we are objective thinkers, we often are not.  Hume famously argued that "reason is slave to the passions."  The general idea is this:  We begin with a position that we are emotionally attached to and we collect evidence and arguments to support what we already believe.  This is as opposed to how most people think they operate; that is, collect evidence and consider reasons and then see where that leads.  There is a wealth of psychological research showing that Hume was right about most people, most of the time.

Mommy, Where do Beliefs Come from?
As we go through our early life, we uncritically acquire a "web" of beliefs based on experiences.  How we experience the world, and the types of experiences we have depend heavily on things out of our control.  Typical elements that form our system of belief include: race, culture, socio-economic class, attractiveness, gender, education, family life, religion/non-religion, nationality, geography, and so on.

Often, before our ability to reason develops, may of these beliefs become central to our identity.  To have them shown to be false would be to admit that something important to our identity is false.  Having our identity come under scrutiny is often an emotionally painful experience and so we vigorously protect the beliefs that form the core of our identity--often ignoring contravening reasons and evidence.

So, why does this all matter?  Because when it comes to arguments about things that are really important to us, our arguments are often driven by emotion rather than reason and even-handed evaluation of reasons and evidence.  So, on such issues, instead of entering the debate with the attitude, "well, lets look at the reasons and evidence for both positions and evaluate which is best," what often happens is we enter a debate with a pre-existing particular position.  We then use arguments to defend the position that we already held--no matter the relative quality of argument for the other position.

In other words, we are emotionally attached to a conclusion before any real critical thought begins.  From that conclusion, we use argumentation, reason, logic to arrive where we already were!  Our reason is slave to the passions; i.e., reason serves to justify the positions we already hold.  Or, to paraphrase Hume again, "man is not the rational animal but the rationalizing animal."

(Note: There are several recent trends in psychology and philosophy that argue that rather than having a distorting effect, emotions play an important role in various domains such as social and ethical reasoning.)

Now, to be clear, there's nothing wrong with holding a position on an issue, however, what is important is to be aware of how our web of beliefs and emotions influence our ability to effectively argue for a position and evaluate the issue. 

Elements of a Web of Belief
As critical thinkers we need to pay close attention to how a person's web of beliefs influences the assumptions they will make; that is, what sorts of things will they take for granted. For example, in the abortion debate, opponents of abortion will often take it for granted that a fetus is a person.  This assumption stems from many facts about their personal history.  Such facts might include: race, religiosity and religion (or lack of), gender, sex, education, career, and socio-economic class.

Some proponents of abortion might even agree that fetus is in some ways a person.  But for them the desires of the autonomous woman carrying the fetus outweigh those of the fetus.  But is this a scientific question where someone in a lab coat can put all the fetus' desires into a beaker and put all the pregnant woman's desires into another then put them on a scale and measure which have more weight?  No.  To demonstrate that one set of desires has more weight than the other requires argument--and that argument must begin from common premises if opposing sides are to have any hope of agreement. 

For many people in this debate, the answer to this question will depend heavily upon the different elements that helped to build that individual's web of beliefs.  Their position will likely not come out of having spent month studying the academic literature on the issue and carefully evaluating the arguments on all sides.  It is for this reason that arguers must seek and begin with common ground with their opponents.

Why Do the Elements that Build Someone's System of Belief Matter?
How to Win an Argument
What is interesting is that based on a person's web of beliefs we can sometimes "reverse engineer" some of the elements that influenced their web of beliefs and also identify what many of their unstated assumptions are.  Doing so can be an important step in deciding how to engage with the arguer.

If our goal is to show our opponent why his argument is problematic or persuade him to our point of view, you must be able search for and identify common ground from which you can build to your conclusion rather than his.  If you both begin from different assumptions, no progress will ever likely be made!

A key to bringing someone to your point of view is to find common assumptions (premises) and show how your conclusion, rather than your opponents follows from these assumptions.

How to be a Philosopher
A true philosopher seeks truth above all else--or at least (non-foolish) consistency.  While we can use our understanding of systems of beliefs and the elements that form them, we can also use this information on ourselves.

It would be foolish to think that magically we are the only ones without ideological blind spots and unexamined assumptions!  Introspection on how our own gender, culture, religion/non-religion, family, education, career, peer group, etc... shape the way we experience the world (and in turn our beliefs and assumptions about it) is a valuable exercise. Doing so allows us to see where we have uncritically accepted certain views.

I can give a recent example in my own life.  Because I grew up agnostic/atheist and most of my friends are agnostic/atheist, for most of my life I've tended to see religion as a harmful thing.  However, over the last half-year or so, I've seen and experienced religion in different contexts beyond something to criticize.

My study of the role community in restoration of criminals to productive members of society has led me to see religion as a (positive) powerful force for bringing the elements of community necessary for restoration.  While I doubt you'll find me in the pews any time soon, re-evaluating some of my assumptions about religion has changed my system of beliefs and many of my fundamental assumptions toward religion.

Interestingly, it was the emotional impact of reading about and experiencing (I went to a church with a friend to experience it) how the community elements of religion can change lives for the better in ways that might be much more difficult (but not impossible) for secular society.   In short, this is more evidence that much of what Hume said was right.  It is our emotions that lead our reason, not the other way around.

Next week we will read an article by J. Haidt, a psychologist, who gives empirical evidence for Hume's idea that we often can't change peoples deeply held views by reasoning, it must be through emotion.