A Law of Subjectivity and Objectivity

A Law of Subjectivity and Objectivity

Things can be subjective or objective, and so can conceptions of things. The former distinction pertains to types of objects and concerns their proximity to the mind: are they explicitly mental or at any rate mind-dependent? In this use, we say that color is subjective but shape is not. The latter distinction pertains to how we think of objects or otherwise mentally represent them: do we specify them conceptually in terms of their relation to us? Accordingly, objective things can have subjective modes of conception, and subjective things can have objective modes of conception. Here I will state a law that may seem paradoxical but is really truistic: the more subjective a conception is the more objective its object is apt to be, and the more objective a conception is the more subjective its object is apt to be. Objective things characteristically have subjective representations, and subjective things characteristically have objective representations. This sounds paradoxical because one would think the subjectivity or objectivity of an object would carry over to its mode of conception. But that is to confuse the two uses of “subjective” and “objective”, which have two meanings—objectual and conceptual. The reason the law is a truism is that the further an object is from the knowing mind the more we have to rely on its relations to our subjectivity (in the objectual sense) to get it in our sights; and the closer an object is to the knowing mind the less we have to rely on such indirect methods to get at the object conceptually.  For example, our thoughts about galaxies rely on our subjective modes of perceiving them, i.e., our visual experience; but our thoughts about our pains can skip all this and go straight to the pain, not relying on our senses. We know about pain directly, as it is in itself, but we know about galaxies indirectly, as they appear to us. The physical world is subjectively represented (initially at least, and maybe always), while the mental world is objectively represented in that we have immediate access to what it objectively and intrinsically is. Intuitively, we see the subjective appearance of galaxies from a certain position in space, but we see the real objective thing in the case of pain and other mental phenomena. We know galaxies from our particular point of view (from Earth, with our sense of sight), while we know pains from no point of view, but directly, and just as they are (by introspection). This is why the law I stated holds: the more out there an object is the more we rely on what is in here to conceive of it (the germ of truth in empiricism), but the more in here the object is the less we have to rely on anything indirect and peculiar to us, and can just go right to the object (hence infallibility doctrines of self-knowledge).

Granted that we have hold of a law here, we can ask how it applies elsewhere, in particular to mathematics and ethics. For if those subject matters are subjectively represented, then they must obey the law and be objective in themselves. But if they are conceived in a demonstrably objective manner, we can infer that they are subjective in the objectual sense: objective epistemology, therefore subjective ontology. If we have a murky humanly-relative conception of numbers, say, then numbers will be objective in the objectual sense—possibly Platonic. But if we conceive of numbers just as they are in themselves, with no subjective intrusion or mediation, then, according to the law, they should be closer to the mind, or even be mental entities. We can infer something like Platonism from conceptual subjectivity and something like intuitionism from conceptual objectivity. That is, we can do this unless the law breaks down in the case of mathematics. Similarly for ethics: if our ethical conceptions are subjective (subject-centered), we can infer objectivity in the objects; but if they have the marks of conceptual objectivity, then ethical subjectivism about the objects would appear to be indicated. If we think of the good relatively to our particular point of view, invoking our own psychology, then ethical truth is apt to be objectively determined; but if we think of it directly, and hence objectively, then ethical subjectivism would appear indicated. Suppose we think of the good as what produces the emotion of approval in us, but not so for all beings that think ethically; then we can argue that ethical fact must transcend our modes of mental representation. We must be thinking of the good in a subjective manner, perhaps peculiar to our species. The contingent mode of presentation of ethical facts that we employ must fall short of the reality in question. By contrast, if our mode of thinking is objectively true to the nature of the ethical facts, then those facts must be subjective in nature (in the objectual sense). If the good really is just what gives us pleasure, say, then we know its nature, because we know what pleasure is and what things produce it. But if the good is something epistemically remote from us, then it must transcend our subjective modes of apprehension (as Plato thought). Subjectivity in the conception implies objectivity in the object (assuming it has an object); and objectivity in the conception implies subjectivity in the object. So, it looks as if all we need to do to settle the question of the objectivity of ethics is to find out whether we think subjectively or objectively about it; and similarly for mathematics, mutatis mutandis. The law will do the rest.

So: do we think about moral value subjectively or objectively, and similarly for mathematics? Do we think about these things from our point of view or from the object’s point of view? The trouble is that it is hard to see how to answer this without having an independent grasp of the ontology in question, as we do in the case of physical objects (we call it “physics”). We can’t determine the epistemology without already knowing the ontology, i.e., whether the objects are subjective or objective in the objectual sense. We might find signs of subjectivity, such as variation in the manner of conception, but these can be interpreted as evidence of relativism; we can’t report that the conception comes apart from the facts, which are uniform. I myself believe that individual or cultural variation in ethical conceptions indicates that people have only a subjective grasp pf ethical values, which themselves exist universally and objectively; but it is hard to prove this (we don’t have an ethical analogue of physics). All we can say is that if ethical conceptions are subjective in the sense explained, and thus analogous to conceptions of the physical world, then ethics is objective on the objectual sense, i.e., not constituted by psychological facts. For if it were so constituted, there would not be this kind of variation; then we could affirm ethical subjectivism with regard to subject matter. (People don’t differ about what pain is because its nature is so evident.) Still, the law applies to the ethical case, though it is hard to use it to argue for one position or the other. If people rely on their own nature to anchor their moral thinking, perforce as it were, then moral values must be objective in the objectual sense, i.e., not “in the mind”. If people referred to the good as “the (non-mental) cause of these feelings”, then we would have reason to suppose that the good is more than the feelings thus referred to. But we don’t have any clear reason to suppose that they do. We must therefore rest content with the conditional claim. That is a non-trivial result.[1]

[1] Needless to say, these are very difficult and obscure matters, over which I have lightly skated.