Good and Evil

[Mudhammam]

I don't think there is anything that is discovered by reason out in the world, that can serve as the foundation of ethics, or that is "the Good," like some Platonic Form.  I rather like what Hume had to say about this in Appendix I of his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, though I will only quote a bit of it here:

I definitely wouldn't want to take things as far as Plato... but in some sense I think he may have been on to something. Aristotle, however, for as much as he got wrong, seemed fairly spot-on to me with his notions of matter/form, particulars/universals, and how he incorporated them into his ethical theory.

But though reason, when fully assisted and improved, be sufficient to instruct us in the pernicious or useful tendency of qualities and actions; it is not alone sufficient to produce any moral blame or approbation. Utility is only a tendency to a certain end; and were the end totally indifferent to us, we should feel the same indifference towards the means. It is requisite a sentiment should here display itself, in order to give a preference to the useful above the pernicious tendencies. This sentiment can be no other than a feeling for the happiness of mankind, and a resentment of their misery; since these are the different ends which virtue and vice have a tendency to promote. Here therefore reason instructs us in the several tendencies of actions, and humanity makes a distinction in favour of those which are useful and beneficial.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/341#Hume_0222_585

Let me just say a few things about this: The end, if we take it to be something like maximum happiness, is not indifferent to us. In fact, it's difficult to see what else could really matter to a sentient being. Therefore, the means are not indifferent either. I agree with Hume that "this sentiment can be no other than a feeling for the happiness" of sentient beings (and not exclusively mankind, as he suggests), but then I don't see how it is really any different than our conception of "truth" or "scientific principles." When he says that "reason instructs us in the several tendencies of actions, and humanity makes a distinction in favour of those which are useful and beneficial," he could just as easily be talking about the pursuit of truth through the scientific method as he is about the pursuit of the virtues through philosophical inquiry. 

If you are going to maintain that something out in the world is discovered that makes things good or bad, you are going to have a very hard time establishing such a claim.  No one has done it thus far in the history of philosophy.

I just don't see that this is a problem unique to ethics. Consider the idea of truth, or even time. You could also say the following:
"If you are going to maintain that something out in the world is discovered that makes things true or false, you are going to have a very hard time establishing such a claim.  No one has done it thus far in the history of philosophy." Or, "If you are going to maintain that something out in the world is discovered that makes things past or future..." (italics mine). Both of those concepts are dependent of rational animals starting with first principles and utilizing induction and deduction for the purposes of demonstration, but would we want to say that if everyone reverted into an infantile stage tomorrow, or got raptured into heaven, then the things which we have determined to be true or false today would cease to be true or false simply because nobody has the concepts in mind (okay, perhaps some of those notions would change if we were raptured, but that wouldn't actually change the truth or falsehood of propositions themselves... only opinions, or the lack, of them)? I don't think so. After all, everyone can be wrong about something. The earth didn't simply begin revolving around the sun because the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos put forth his heliocentric model. So why should things "become" good simply because Quintus Fabius says so? With time (and unless we slide down into solipsism, one could easily, though absurdly, say everything else), which seems much more apparent as a feature of the world (it is after all assumed to be a fourth dimension like space... which is, to say the least, odd), we can't point to anything "out in the world" that forces things to vaporize into this untraversable past, this gray area that lies behind the moving "arrow of time" which can never be crossed over, and is only known through "records," yet nobody doubts that time exists in some absolute sense and that it "flows" towards the future... well, in fact some do doubt this, but I imagine any metaphysical claim with regards to time is going to be equally difficult to establish! In short, it's more or less an abstract concept that people find convenient to think about in terms of a physical structure inextricably linked to space... but they fail to establish any firm grip of understanding or point to concrete evidence of its existence in this sense too.

Additionally, what Hume is saying fits in well with modern evolutionary theory, and with the idea that social animals need to get along with each other (or they would not be social).  The feelings or sentiments which form the basis of this are the foundation of ethics.  Ethical behavior has been observed in nonhuman animals, which further supports the idea that morals are not a matter of reasoning, but of feeling.  This also fits with how deeply these feelings are felt, for they are deeply imbedded in what we are.

I fully agree with Hume on this. I should reiterate some of my thoughts: 1. Morality cannot be divorced from feeling. Sensation is at least half of the determination of what brings pleasure and pain, and therefore happiness, and therefore our ethical foundation. 2. I don't think animals are totally devoid of reason. They may exercise it differently, and the best problem-solvers in the animal kingdom outside of us may appear rudimentary in comparison to our brightest mathematicians, physicists, etc., but they still are able to recognize patterns and put two and two together. 3. I see modern evolutionary theory as more or less related to the epistemology of moral theories (how we come to think we know what real goods are) rather than saying anything fruitful about the ontological status of "the Good" (that what we think we have come to know as real goods are really good), i.e. due to goodness' sake alone.

I don't think so.  If you disagree, I think you will find it a bit difficult to come up with evidence that there is something better for its own sake.  That it might be good for something else is easy enough, but that is an entirely different claim.

Like I said, it is more than a bit difficult! Maybe it is impossible. But that doesn't make any alternatives better (with regards to what?   ), and I don't think we should abandon concepts that are necessary for our everyday experiences in the actual world simply because they're difficult to think about. Nobody knows what numbers represent (well, except that they represent themselves!), but we wouldn't begin to think that the values they assign are arbitrarily selected (even though the squiggly lines are).

When the first principles are at issue, any assumption of them is simply begging the question.  If that is not enough to convince you to rethink things, consider this:  If you assume some set of "first principles" and build your ethical system on that, upon what basis will you be able to select your system over another system, built on a different set of "first principles" that someone else prefers?

You cannot have an infinite regress of demonstrations. You must always begin with definitions, or first principles. I think the basis for which we select these are the same as everything else---reason and evidence---but yes, we may just have to assume that happiness is better than misery, even if we cannot demonstrate this in any other way but an appeal to our experiences and that of everyone (including sentient animals) else---which nobody has trouble doing when it comes to "the problem of other minds."