Jamie K.A. Smith wrote on twitter the other day:
We’re told that social constructionism has no resources to stop injustices like racism. But how did moral realism fair in that regard?
I want to briefly discuss where I think this is wrong. Firstly, it is true that people merely professing to be moral realists has not created heaven on earth. This should not be a big surprise to Christians, who believe in original sin, total depravity, and the persistence of indwelling sin in the lives of even regenerated people. But at the same time, I don’t notice that social constructionists, people who believe that all value and meaning is the creation of communities, have become morally perfect either. Except, perhaps, in cases where they have redefined their sin to be righteousness “for their community”. But the rest of us, I think, may not be persuaded. And certainly, communities that believe there is no objective right and wrong could easily, and indeed have, been quite evil and unjust.
Secondly, if the question is: “which view, considered in the abstract, provides more motivation to be good?”, then I think it is moral realism, not social constructionism, that has more resources available towards reaching that end. This is for one main reason. The communities of moral realism and social constructionism can both discipline their communities toward achieving the good and stopping injustices, for moral realist communities are still communities. But only moral realists can offer a principled argument for why people outside of their own community also ought to stop committing injustices. Social constructionists can only offer bare commands or invitations to those on the outside, while moral realists can do both of these things, and provide reasons why others should stop being racists, etc.
Thirdly, social constructionism is, at bottom, a kind of cultural relativism. And when cultural relativism goes missionary, when it tries to recruit from the outside or shape the outside world in its image, it is essentially being Nietzschean. Since it can have no objective right to do this (since, in its own view, there are no such things), any attempt to condemn others for things it considers wrong, or to enforce rules against such behaviour, is an act of sheer will-to-power. There is no trans-communal standard of justice that could make such an act warranted, since there is no trans-communal standard of justice. So it is merely one community trying to impose its will on another, for no more fundamental reason than that the community wishes to do it. At base, it must reduce all moral outrage to socially constructed arbitrary value preferences, and so to wish or will.
By “social contructionist” do you mean Hobbesian foundations for ethics or something? Because I don’t see social constructionism and moral realism as even being about the same subject matter. I suppose you could see some of the anti-realist views in meta-ethics as a kind of social constructionism, but social constructionism is simply the view that our concepts and views are determined by social facts that are contingent and socially-variable elements. Social constructionism is certainly true about how we get our moral views. But that’s compatible with being a moral realist about what’s really true about morality. A Hobbesian equates the two, but you can be a social constructionist without doing so.
Jeremy,
I’m only borrowing the language from Smith at this point, and that from a tweet, so I can only conjecture based on the fact that he seems to think they are opposites, and that Smith has aligned himself with kinds of anti-realisms, that he means to oppose the two. And a social constructionist moral anti-realist would, I think, have to say the kinds of things I’m suggesting they say.
But maybe Smith means something more benign, and I’ve misinterpreted him.
Also, I’m not sure I’d agree social constructionism is certainly true if by “determined” you mean “determined to the exclusion of any other causes”. I’d think that to be false.
No, it doesn’t mean “determined to the exclusion of other causes”. When people say race is socially constructed, for example, they don’t mean the skin colors and ancestral heritage of people assigned to races are socially determined. They don’t even mean that every factor going into determining how the different classificatory systems around the world is purely social. They simply mean that contingent social features determine enough that you could have had a very different classificatory system.
But I think part of my point is that a social constructionist is a realist. I am a realist about races, precisely because I think the races are socially constructed. I don’t think they’re fictions. I think they are created in part by social practices. I’m a realist about college students, plumbers, and presidents of the U.S. as well, and all of those are socially-determined entities.
To get a contrast with moral realism, you need to be more precise. Hobbes thinks morality is real, just as materialists think the mind is real. But both reduce it to something that is controversial to reduce it to. Dualists think materialists have not identified what the mind is. People who think morality is intrinsic to the structure of the universe don’t think Hobbes has understood the correct foundation of morality. But Hobbes is a realist about morality, just as materialists are realists about the mind.
And I really doubt that Smith is a genuine anti-realist, at least as I would use the term. He is a Christian, after all. I’m not sure what view he really has in mind. Maybe something about moral epistemology, not moral metaphysics. But I’m guessing there.