Moral Duty and Immoralism

RE: ReACTIONary, what is your evidence that moral duty exists?

I was not bringing up an issue of existence, but a definitional, not an evidential, issue. It is a definitional issue that makes a difference, however.

I maintain* that any discourse concerning morality is concerned with defining, legitimizing, or advocating some conception of duty, and duty is the background presupposition for such a discussion. It is something like theology and theism, which are, necessarily, all about God or some such conception. If you enter into a dispute over the reality of God ("exists" is not quite the right word) then you are not engaging in theology. Such discussions are, of course, worth having and are legitimate, but they are not theological in nature, strictly speaking. If you want to doubt duty, you are doubting morality itself, just as an atheist is doubting theism rather than engaging in theology.

The reason that it makes a difference is that "duty" may become a Smuggled Concept®* that lies behind discourse that superficially denies duty. I see this happening all the time in libertarian discussions. This, then, may become the basis of a "transcendental demonstration" of the necessity of duty to such discourse. Aristotle demonstrated the transcendental necessity of "A is A" by noting that you cannot sensibly argue against it without assuming that it is true. Similarly, it is Transcendentally Stupid®* to argue vigorously for some conception of individual rights, liberty, justice, etc. and at the same time maintain that the concept of duty is fundamentally illegitimate.

Let's move from the transcendental to the existential. Of course we should not pretend that we can infer from "what is" that "which ought to be". However the "operational existence" and importance of duty in human life easy to empirically observe. Let's ask why. We are often told, after Aristotle, that man is a "rational animal", and often told further, that rationality is our "unique" mode of survival and thus our "defining characteristic." Speaking from memory (you may correct me if I am wrong) what Aristotle said has been variously translated not only as "rational animal", but also as "speaking animal" and "political animal." All, I believe, are correct, and ultimately interrelated.

To put it into contemporary biological terms, humans are recognized to be "social animals," and while we are not uniquely social animals, our survival (and, truth be told, our rationality itself) as humans depends on our social nature. Since evolution has formed us as social animals, it would be expected (if not known certainly) that some biological mechanism exists within us to reinforce and to insure that our social nature is expressed and maintained. It would seem that regulative drives, emotions, inclinations and aversions would have to exist within the individual in order to bring about our social existence, especially in a "state of nature." Thus we speak of the "moral sentiments" such as guilt, resentment and the sense of duty. "Regulative ideas" such as a system of ethics would be a natural extension of more primitive regulative emotional experience, and perhaps a necessary extension for a rational animal that also maintains a social nature.


*I'm only maintaining what I have understood others to maintain. There certainly isn't an original thought in what follows.

*The concept of a Smuggled Concept® is a wholly owned concept of Ayn Rand. Not used by permission.

*The concept of Transcendental Stupidity® is a wholly owned concept of Immanuel Kant.