I didn’t assert it, I mentioned it hypothetically.
The point is that “taxation is evil/immoral” is false if by this we mean to give a description of prevailing moral sentiment. If I assert “taxation is immoral” I am not giving a description of social norms as they are, I am offering a criticism of social norms. “People don’t hold taxation to be an odious evil but they should.”
There are at least four levels of connotation at work with moral-value language:
- A value-laden expression of an individual’s own sentiments about a particular kind of human behavior (distaste, preference… this is why I groaned at Molyneux’s “Universally Preferable Behavior”… he’s discussing just one connotation)
- A value-free description of prevailing moral norms
- A value-free assessment of the suitability of specific ends to bringing about an individual’s satisfaction (in the technical sense of this term) - this is where Epicurus (correctly) placed the locus of ethical discussion
- A value-laden assessment of the correct resolution of a dispute
The last bullet is particularly problematic because human language tends to mash together the different connotations in ways that make it difficult to keep track of what exactly is being said.
Consider the proposition: “It is wrong to engage in homosexual sex”.
If we take this in the first connotation, it is saying “engaging in homosexual sex is distasteful to the speaker” or “the thought of even someone else…” etc. This connotation is value-laden because it is an expression of a subjective sentiment or opinion. It is always true as long as the speaker is speaking truthfully.
If we take it in the second connotation, it is saying “people generally believe homosexual sex is immoral”. This connotation is value-free and is either true or false. The complicated part of this is that we also have to specify in which connotations we mean that people generally hold it to be the case!
If we take it in the third connotation, it is saying “engaging in homosexual sex is an incorrect course of action for attaining happiness”. This is also a value-free statement and is either true or false but it is crucial to recognize that it is a statement about a population, not about an individual. The conditions under which the proposition is universally true (true for each and every individual) are more stringent than for the proposition to be simply true (with individual exceptions). For example, “sex is pleasurable” is a true statement about the human nature but it is not universally true (true for each and every individual without exception).
Finally, if we take it in the fourth connotation, it means that in disputes involving an act of homosexual sex, someone who has engaged in it should be considered to have “done wrong”. This is a value-laden assessment because it is an expression of essentially the same subjective sentiment as in the first connotation but with the added force that the proposition is meant to justify a legal outcome.
And this is where moral argument becomes extremely problematic and muddled. The origins of moral language lie in dispute-resolution… answering the question “who did wrong?” is, in the primitive situation, one and the same as answering the question “what is the correct resolution to this dispute?” But the role of law in society is not merely - or even mostly - to actualize prevailing moral sentiments. Specifically, moral argument and propaganda can become a basis for pushing law to suit the ends of special interests. So, the mere act of saying “homosexual sex is wrong” might be a precondition to making homsexual sex unlawful.
I didn’t mention the political aspect of morality but you should be able to fill in the blanks - when special interests begin to materially profit from altering the character of law, they become organized moral propagandists, otherwise known as political ideologues, political theorists, lobbies, religious leaders, and so on.
Clayton -