On Moral Realism and the 'No Miracles' argument

A response to Applied Virtue

As some of you might know, I recently uploaded a YouTube video explaining the concept of 'Gnon', the NRx formulation of the God of Nature Or Nature, tracing its significance and offering a critique of my own through the comparison to the film No Country for Old Men. The more philosophical aspects of the video were criticised in a livestream by Applied Virtue, and the arguments made in the video were elaborated in a post on his substack. Go and read it if you want to understand my rebuttal. Don’t worry, there’s time. Done? Ok, let’s get into it.

The importance of this debate lies in the difference between natural law philosophy and Gnon. Students of natural law understand that God has ordained a purpose for humanity - a telos - which should be followed to maximise human flourishing. Gnon, on the other hand, prescribes no telos, and formulates no innate goodness to anything. Gnon merely offers a promise of survival for effective management of the social organism. But survival at what cost? There are many processes of nature, and the vast majority of them are destructive, so it is up to us to choose how we negotiate with them. ‘Capturing Gnon’ means to confront such natural forces. We do not submit to them arbitrarily, or worse, ignore them entirely - instead, we channel creative energy within Gnon’s limitations. It means to build a civilisation in which we can stave off the harsh, ruthless world of the outside and preserve certain sacred values that would perish otherwise. But what sort of scared values? NRx has never come up with a good answer. ‘Civilisation', 'human flourishing', the 'common good', and the 'health of the people' are typical choices, but these are vague. Thus, the question is formed: to what end, what telos, do we orient society?

Let us first acknowledge that humans are romantic and capable of recognising beauty, rational and capable of enquiring into the truth, and honest and capable of pursuing justice. While there is a great diversity of taste, proclivities, as well as the capacity for self-reflection and integrity amongst humanity, it is at least conceivable that society could be oriented in a way that, for example, prioritised truth over political agenda. For moral realists like Applied Virtue (AV), this is easy, because such concepts exist naturally, like the laws of science. And much like how scientific theories give greater insight into physical phenomenon, moral theories give us greater capacity for appreciating these values. AV structures his argument in the following syllogism: (a) scientific theories exhibit powerful predictive success, (b) which would be an incredible coincidence if science did not land on some truth, and therefore (c) scientific theories are accurate. AV then applies the same syllogism to value judgements: (d) 'qualitative theories that lead to human flourishing behave as if goodness and beauty are real', and (e) 'if truth / goodness / beauty don't exist, then this is an [implausible] coincidence', therefore (f) 'goodness and beauty are real'. AV’s use of the 'no miracles' argument in support of the scientific realist perspective is compelling; even an atheist, sceptical about metaphysical causality, would surely have to admit it would be a miracle if scientific laws did not describe some truth. But I believe that it falls apart when it is applied to value judgements.

Both atheistic traditionalists and moral realists recognise humanity’s capacity for appreciating beauty, truth, etc., as qualities which lead to human flourishing. But whereas atheists like H. P. Lovecraft believe that such phenomena is emergent and arbitrary, moral realists believe that there exists in nature a true quality of beauty, for example, that we can appreciate in certain forms. The atheistic traditionalist views human appreciation for beauty like a cat playing with a ball of yarn - a sensory response, one that has no further end nor meaning than that which is derived from the appreciator. Both theories obviously acknowledge that a value judgement requires a form, and a human appreciator, who can experience the qualia of ‘flourishing’. derived from appreciating the form. Whereas the moral realist believes that such qualia derives from the appreciation of things that necessarily contain the property or feature of goodness / beauty, the atheistic traditionalist believes there is nothing intrinsically Good about anything.

I believe there are several problems with the moral realist view. Firstly, it seems to posit a universal set of real qualities that all humanity is capable of appreciating. Unlike the atheistic traditionalist, who considers human flourishing to be highly dependent on local culture, socialisation, and genetic makeup, the moral realist must believe that if these qualities that lead to human flourishing are real, there must be some definite connection or similarity between them. But different societies, religions, and cultures have myriad definitions of human flourishing - ask Protestants, Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, etc., and they will each give a different yet certain answer, according to different metrics. This is by virtue of the diverse ways humans can ‘flourish’. Even if we suppose that, across time and territory, the art, architecture, and cultural symbols of different groups can all contain features of ‘the Good’, does this not simply imply how diverse such human flourishing is? Does it not make ‘the Good’ less of a coherent, perceptible quality?

Secondly, I believe that a Darwinist explanation can help inform our understanding of this sensation of human flourishing. This does not mean I believe that the appreciation of truth, goodness, etc. are necessarily the result of Darwinian evolution, but neither do I agree with AV that Darwinian explanations fail to answer why something is evolutionarily advantageous in the first place. The Darwinian perspective basically follows the line of argument of the moral realist - that moral frameworks orient us towards certain values - but instead of the moral framework, it is an iterative evolutionary process that causes the human flourishing we derive from abiding by these values. However, I am under no impression that evolution necessarily optimises for anything I recognise as Good. Here we can recognise the crucial difference between science and morality in this regard. Science can provide a legitimate Darwinian advantage in contests of group selection. Concepts like justice and truth are, to some extent, disposable. Justice, as far as it creates an appreciable balance and order, can be an impediment to Darwinian success. We might expect some groups of humans to resent justice (justice here meaning the accurate execution of the law, and fulfilment of contracts, not the new Orwellian use of the term) and others to appreciate it, depending on their genetic constitution. In fact, it seems most likely that humans have evolved to appreciate justice for others, but not recognise their own transgressions. Ultimately there is nothing inherent about justice that is relevant to human flourishing, and even in situations in which it is, it is peculiar and not universal. Neither is there necessarily in beauty, goodness, or truth. In fact, many come to resent these qualities for whatever reason. But what if they adopted a moral framework, one that would assist them in appreciating such value judgements?

When someone perceives a process in the natural world, they might attempt to describe it. Using the scientific method, they enquire ‘is the explanation that I have given true?’. As in, is this at all connected to the actual machinations of this process, or is it all in my head? It seems as though successful theories are true representations of natural laws, because they have powerful predicting power which would be miraculous otherwise. However, when it comes to morality and human flourishing, this process is meaningfully different. When one posits a scientific law, one can ask: ‘does my explanation have any relevance to the actual mechanics of this process?’ But when one appreciates The Good, they can only ask ‘does this have any relevance to my perception of this concept?’ When comparing the use of any moral framework, it is necessarily linked back to the personal sense of human flourishing. There is no necessary connection to any form of exterior quality, which humans merely discover. When a moral theory says ‘if you do ethical action x, you will appreciate value judgement y, which will lead to human flourishing’, it does not prove innateness of the value judgement, but only the reality of human flourishing, which has nothing to do with any natural, external properties. It is even possible to conceive of inducing a state of human flourishing by placing someone in virtual reality. With science, it truly would be a miracle if the scientific rules only applied to one’s perception of reality, and were not universal. Human flourishing is necessarily based upon individual perception. Whereas a scientific experiment seeks to understand nature’s laws, the best metaphor for an ethical system is as a prop in an experiment - it only confirms the validity of the subjective parameters. This is why I cannot agree with AV when he argues that we might be able to discover the ‘best moral theory’, similar to discovering the ‘best scientific theory’. According to what standard, exactly? With regards to beauty, the 'no miracles' argument here would seem to assert that because we find beautiful things beautiful, it would be a miracle for beauty not to be inherent. But doesn't this simply beg the question?

I do not regard the 'no miracles' argument as convincing when it is applied to morality. It seems to beg the question - it prescribes ethical behaviour necessary for human flourishing, and yet the definition of human flourishing is ultimately arbitrary; both are defined by the moral realist who is making the claim. They have the burden of proof that these concepts are legitimate and innate to certain forms of society and physical objects. When a society sees a physical process occurring that they do not understand, they are able to acknowledge it. But when people appreciate art, it is impossible to discern any specific natural law that indicates a deviation from ‘true’ beauty, or identify any universal, innate flaw in a painting that makes it unable to capture ‘true’ beauty. Let alone a flaw that could be accounted for by a more rigorously moral mindset. We can compare different society's levels of scientific understanding by how much they are able to frame these processes and predict outcomes from different causes, but we can’t do the same for the statues of Ancient Greece and the paintings of the Hudson River School. It is up to the appreciator to appreciate.

Ultimately, I am only an amateur philosopher, and this is hardly my area of expertise. I’m still open to being convinced - your move, AV.