Ethics

Is it possible that objective moral truths are out there but have not yet been discovered?

Comments

There are well worked-over philosophical questions about whether moral propositions have truth values and whether the things referred to in such propositions (duties, virtues, rights, and so on) are discovered or invented or (like irrational numbers) constructed. I assume that these are not the questions you are raising.

On this assumption, the answer is yes. It is likely that people after us will be committed to certain moral propositions for very good reasons that we do not yet know or understand. This is likely from the history of moral thought which has yielded such new good reasons numerous times. (All this is closely analogous to what I would say about science and mathematics: It is very likely that new good reasons for holding certain empirical/mathematical propositions will emerge because the emergence of such new good reasons has been a consistent companion of scientific/mathematical inquiry and reflection.)

Your question may be motivated by the thought that the subject matter of morality is closer at hand than that of science and mathematics. The latter explore new domains that often require the invention of new words (quasar, myon; Zermelo number, and so on). Morality ranges over the same old stuff of loving, fighting, lying, helping, and so on.

In response, the domain of morality, too, is expanding. We now face new decisions about abortion as fetuses are viable at a much earlier age, new decisions about cloning, genetic enhancement, and genetic (re)design of human beings; new decisions about privacy protections in internet traffic, electronic data processing, and video surveillance with facial recognition software; new decisions about the use of sophisticated manipulation and brainwashing techniques.

Moreover, even with the “old” issues, it is likely that some currently highly dominant moral views will in the future be rejected for very good reasons. I would think, for example, that we have today a very inadequate view of our moral responsibilities with respect to the global poor and with respect to future generations. To be sure, some people are likely to have views on these subjects that future thought will reaffirm. Still, I expect that much better reasons will be available to support these views – just as we now have much better reasons than the sage who said, 3000 years ago, that stars are large fires. And I expect that these views will then be better integrated in a larger system of moral beliefs and reasons for them.

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