Moral realism: bases and history of this philosophical position

Moral realism is a philosophical position that defends the objective existence of moral facts . That is to say, it maintains that, independently of the subjective, cognitive or social properties; The premises and moral actions have an objectively verifiable reality.

The latter has generated long and complex philosophical discussions around issues such as the following: are there really true moral claims? Does honesty, for example, have an objective reality? What gives the quality of "true" to a moral affirmation? Is it a metaphysical or rather semantic debate? Likewise, and beyond philosophical debates, moral realism has been incorporated into important theories of psychological development.

In line with the above, we will see in an introductory way what moral realism is, what are the philosophical positions with which it debates and how it has been incorporated into psychology.

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What is moral realism?

Moral realism is the philosophical position that affirms the objective existence of moral facts. According to Devitt (2004), for moral realism, there are moral statements that are objectively true, from which the following conclusion can be drawn: there are people and actions that are, in objective terms, morally good, bad, honest, unkind , etc.

For its advocates, moral realism is an important part of the worldview of subjects in general, and it was for the social sciences especially before the emergence of contemporary trends that questioned the relationship between "meaning" and "truth".

He argues, for example, that the cruelty of a person functions as an explanation of his behavior, which makes moral facts part of the hierarchy of facts that make up the natural world.

Some background

Realism, more generally, it is a philosophical position that supports the objective existence (independent of the observer) of the facts of the world . That means that our perception is a faithful representation of what we observe, and the same when we speak: when affirming something in literal terms, its existence and its truth are confirmed. That is to say that in the background in this argument, is the univocal relationship between language and meaning.

From the "linguistic turn" of the twentieth century, debates and philosophical issues were treated in relation to language and the relationship between language and meaning was questioned, which also questioned the most fundamental philosophical truths.

The latter has led different philosophers to discern between debates about the meaning we give to the world, and debates about things in the external world. That is to say, between the metaphysical debates and the semantic debates. Realism as a philosophical position can be observed in many different areas, for example, in philosophy of science, in epistemology, or, as in the case in question, in morality.

Dimensions of moral realism

According to this philosophical position, the moral facts are translated into psychological and social facts .

There are, therefore, actions that "should" take place and others that do not, as well as a series of rights that can be assigned to the subjects. And all this can be checked objectively, because they exist independently of the person or the social context that observes or defines them. Therefore, Devitt (2004) tells us that moral realism is sustained in two dimensions:

1. Independence

The moral reality is independent of the mind, because the moral facts are objective (not satisfied by our feelings, opinions, theories or social conventions).

2. Existence

Maintains a commitment to moral facts, as it affirms its objective existence.

Criticisms and debates around the objectivity of moral facts

Criticisms of moral realism have come from the subjectivist and relativistic currents who have questioned the relationship between language and the different elements that make up a psychological and social reality; as well as the possibility of speaking about this reality independently of who defines or experiences it.

Specifically, in the context of moral realism and relativism arise two main criticisms that are known as "non-cognitivism" and "theories of error." All of them debate around the same object of investigation: the moral affirmations.

And they ask themselves, on the one hand, if these affirmations speak of moral facts, and on the other, if those facts or at least some of them are true.While moral realism would respond affirmatively to both questions, and would ask what it is that makes a moral fact "true" in universal terms; Non-cognitivism and theories of error would respond in different ways.

Non-cognitivism

The non-cognitivism argues that moral claims do not correspond to moral properties, in fact, are not properly statements, but indicative sentences without condition of truth that corresponds to the facts.

They are sentences that express attitudes, emotions, prescribe norms, but not moral facts in themselves. This semantic analysis is accompanied by a metaphysical stance that affirms that there are no moral properties or facts.

That is, non-cognitivists deny that moral claims allude to objective facts, and therefore also deny that they are true. In other words, they deny the realistic explanations about nature and moral reality, and deny the realistic claims about the causal role of reality

Error Theory

Broadly speaking, the Theory of Error, by the Australian philosopher (known for its moral skepticism) John Leslie Mackie, says that moral claims contain, indeed, moral meanings, but none of them can be completely true. That is, there are moral facts about which is reported through moral claims, but not necessarily true.

For the theory of error, there are no moral facts in themselves, that is, denies the existence of all objective reality of morality. To analyze why people argue about moral facts that do not exist, someone who positions themselves in defense of theories of error could point out how moral statements are used to mobilize emotions, attitudes or personal interests (based on the fact that these discussions inform about facts with moral meanings).

On the other hand, someone who defends non-cognitivism could analyze the same situation by referring to the practical utility of speaking as if moral statements really intended to inform about facts, although they really do not (based on the idea of ​​moral affirmations or they do not even intend to report facts).

Moral realism in developmental psychology

Moral realism is also one of the key concepts in the theory of moral development of the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.

Roughly, What he proposes is that children go through two major phases characterized by stages of progressively abstract reasoning . These phases follow the same sequence in all children, regardless of their cultural context or any other element external to the subject. The phases are the following:

• Stage of heteronomy or moral realism (5 to 10 years) , where children attribute moral rules to figures of authority and power in a dichotomous perspective of good and evil, and let feelings like honesty or justice arise.
• Autonomous stage or moral independence (10 years and up) When children attribute arbitrariness to the rules, they can challenge or violate them and also modify them based on negotiation.

Subsequently, the American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg concludes that moral maturity is not reached after the second stage proposed by Piaget. He develops his own scheme of moral development in six stages that include the first two of the Swiss psychologist, including the idea that morality has universal principles that can not be acquired in early childhood.

What Kohlberg does is to bring Piaget's theories of cognitive development to more detailed studies on the evolution of moral judgments; understanding these as a reflexive process on values, and from the possibility of ordering them in a logical hierarchy that allows facing different dilemmas.

The studies of Piaget and Kohlberg marked in a very important way the psychology of the development, however, they have also received diverse critics precisely for appealing to a neutrality and universality of the moral development that could be applied to understand all the subjects independently of questions as the context cultural or gender.

Bibliographic references:

• Sayre-McCord, G. (2015). Moral Realism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved August 13, 2018. Available at: //plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/
• Devitt, M. (2004). Moral realism: a naturalistic perspective. Areté Revista de Filosofía, XVI (2): 185-206.
• Barra, E. (1987). Moral development: an introduction to Kohlberg's theory. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 19 (1): 7:18.