Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts By Justin P. McBrayer

[Demeter]

A misleading distinction between fact and opinion is embedded in the Common Core...

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/why-our-children-dont-think-there-are-moral-facts/

What would you say if you found out that our public schools were teaching children that it is not true that it’s wrong to kill people for fun or cheat on tests? Would you be surprised? I was. As a philosopher, I already knew that many college-aged students don’t believe in moral facts. While there are no national surveys quantifying this phenomenon, philosophy professors with whom I have spoken suggest that the overwhelming majority of college freshman in their classrooms view moral claims as mere opinions that are not true or are true only relative to a culture.

What I didn’t know was where this attitude came from. Given the presence of moral relativism in some academic circles, some people might naturally assume that philosophers themselves are to blame. But they aren’t. There are historical examples of philosophers who endorse a kind of moral relativism, dating back at least to Protagoras who declared that “man is the measure of all things,” and several who deny that there are any moral facts whatsoever. But such creatures are rare. Besides, if students are already showing up to college with this view of morality, it’s very unlikely that it’s the result of what professional philosophers are teaching. So where is the view coming from? A few weeks ago, I learned that students are exposed to this sort of thinking well before crossing the threshold of higher education. When I went to visit my son’s second grade open house, I found a troubling pair of signs hanging over the bulletin board. They read:

Fact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.

Opinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.

Hoping that this set of definitions was a one-off mistake, I went home and Googled “fact vs. opinion.” The definitions I found online were substantially the same as the one in my son’s classroom. As it turns out, the Common Core standards used by a majority of K-12 programs in the country require that students be able to “distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text.” And the Common Core institute provides a helpful page full of links to definitions, lesson plans and quizzes to ensure that students can tell the difference between facts and opinions...So what’s wrong with this distinction and how does it undermine the view that there are objective moral facts?

First, the definition of a fact waffles between truth and proof — two obviously different features. Things can be true even if no one can prove them. For example, it could be true that there is life elsewhere in the universe even though no one can prove it. Conversely, many of the things we once “proved” turned out to be false. For example, many people once thought that the earth was flat. It’s a mistake to confuse truth (a feature of the world) with proof (a feature of our mental lives). Furthermore, if proof is required for facts, then facts become person-relative. Something might be a fact for me if I can prove it but not a fact for you if you can’t. In that case, E=MC2 is a fact for a physicist but not for me.

But second, and worse, students are taught that claims are either facts or opinions. They are given quizzes in which they must sort claims into one camp or the other but not both. But if a fact is something that is true and an opinion is something that is believed, then many claims will obviously be both. For example, I asked my son about this distinction after his open house. He confidently explained that facts were things that were true whereas opinions are things that are believed. We then had this conversation:

Me: “I believe that George Washington was the first president. Is that a fact or an opinion?”

Him: “It’s a fact.”

Me: “But I believe it, and you said that what someone believes is an opinion.”

Him: “Yeah, but it’s true.”

Me: “So it’s both a fact and an opinion?”

The blank stare on his face said it all.

How does the dichotomy between fact and opinion relate to morality? I learned the answer to this question only after I investigated my son’s homework (and other examples of assignments online). Kids are asked to sort facts from opinions and, without fail, every value claim is labeled as an opinion. Here’s a little test devised from questions available on fact vs. opinion worksheets online: are the following facts or opinions?


— Copying homework assignments is wrong.

— Cursing in school is inappropriate behavior.

— All men are created equal.

— It is worth sacrificing some personal liberties to protect our country from terrorism.

— It is wrong for people under the age of 21 to drink alcohol.

— Vegetarians are healthier than people who eat meat.

— Drug dealers belong in prison.

The answer? In each case, the worksheets categorize these claims as opinions. The explanation on offer is that each of these claims is a value claim and value claims are not facts. This is repeated ad nauseum: any claim with good, right, wrong, etc. is not a fact. In summary, our public schools teach students that all claims are either facts or opinions and that all value and moral claims fall into the latter camp. The punchline: there are no moral facts. And if there are no moral facts, then there are no moral truths.

MORE

Justin P. McBrayer is an associate professor of philosophy at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo. He works in ethics and philosophy of religion.

ALL ONE REALLY NEEDS TO DO IS ADD ETHICS TO THE CURRICULUM (AND SEND POLITICIANS BACK FOR A REFRESHER COURSE....)

[DetlefK]

1. This professor is wrong. There are no moral facts:

If there were moral facts, this would mean there is a source of morals that exists independently from those having morals and cannot be corrupted/altered accordingly.

Does the philosophy professor offer any proposal what this universal source of morals might be? No. He demands that we deal in absolutes without proving that those absolutes exist. For a philosophy professor, this is outrageously lazy.

[Demeter]

2. He's confusing "facts" with "generally-accepted standards", I think

I agree on the lazy part.

[Kalidurga]

3. His thinking seems a bit sloppy to me, but he is entitled to his opinion

— Copying homework assignments is wrong.

This really is an opinion even if he doesn't like that. Children often do homework together and they often talk about what the answer to a question should be. Most teachers don't discourage that. Even in college groups of students study together and work on their papers together even if the topic is different, in these cases they correct information they believe is wrong, or they proofread for each other, and sometimes there are online assignments they work on together. If it was cheating or wrong an instructor would say don't work on this assignment with anyone else and if it was vitally important they would have the work done in a controlled setting.

— Cursing in school is inappropriate behavior.

Cursing is subjective. I like cursing, I don't do it at school, but I don't have a problem with people who do.

— All men are created equal.

Now that's a mess isn't it. All people deserve respect. But, then some people do things that are heinous, they should be arrested and put on trial and the outcome of that trial shouldn't be determined by their social status, yet it often is. In fact their social status might even insulate them from arrest. Rich people are seldom arrested for possessing drugs poor people often are and that is IMO wrong. And people have different abilities. And then there are those who would just argue whether or not humans are created at all.

— It is worth sacrificing some personal liberties to protect our country from terrorism.

This is a question asking for opinion, it isn't even a statement that you can say this is opinion or fact. However, the answer will be an opinion.

— It is wrong for people under the age of 21 to drink alcohol.
The drinking age varies from country to country. I am old enough to remember when it varied from state to state and the age fluctuated at times.

— Vegetarians are healthier than people who eat meat.
This hasn't been proven one way or another however there is proof vegetarians weigh less on average and vegans even less. So it is still an opinion, if the question was just about weight well we have studies for that.

— Drug dealers belong in prison.
Probably not. My opinion.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. I am not a philosopher, but....

it seems like he wants to base his complaints at least in part in definitions provided to children, rather than the more technical definitions one might expect from someone with a degree in philosophy, for instance.

But if a fact is something that is true and an opinion is something that is believed, then many claims will obviously be both.

This is a great way to talk about 'facts' and 'opinions' with a child who has a really limited vocabulary, or as shorthand between adults. But I'd expect something a bit more nuanced from someone who wants to nitpick about the meaning of 'truth' and 'proof' and 'fact' and 'opinion'. Just because I say I 'believe' something, doesn't suddenly mean it's an opinion, in the way that modern humanity uses the term 'opinion'. If I tell you I 'believe' 2 + 2 = 4, that doesn't change the objective reality of how our base ten number system and mathematical operators work into just my 'opinion'. It's an 'opinion' shared by every single person who understands how base ten mathematics is set up. It might mean that I'm using the word 'believe' sloppily, though.

And as to his 'belief' that there's something wrong with classifying his examples at the end as opinions? I'd classify them all as opinions. They're not nuanced enough to tell me if there are any facts underlying such broad generalizations. You could come up with specific scenarios that would show each to be 'wrong'. (For instance, I was a very unhealthy vegetarian, because during the time I was one, I only ate the same few types of plant-based food over and over, and by and large not the ones that would have made me far healthier but that I didn't like.)

If I drop my coffee cup, it's a fact. If I tell you I dropped my coffee cup, it's still a fact, even if you didn't see me do it, and couldn't testify to it except through hearsay.

So it seems like a 'moral fact' is a 'fact' that only applies some of the time. Maybe in 'most' cases, maybe on 'average'.

Morals are great. I approve of people deciding that it's a bad thing to go around killing other people, and maybe even listing out reasons as to the harm caused by such actions. But just because you slap the word 'fact' into the phrase you want to use to describe a sentence such as 'Killing people is bad', doesn't make it a 'fact' in the way that 'fact' is used by non-philosophers.

[bemildred]

5. To the extent that he is arguing that fact, opinion, and "reasoned argument"

are not disjoint categories, that a statement can be all three at once for example, or none of them at once, I agree. And the test, therefore, teaches precisely what it purports to fend off, a simplifed Aristotelian set of pidgeonholes into which all statements can be stuffed.

"Fuck you" for example, is not fact, opinion, or reasoned argument, but it does communicate something.

The Law is all it's luster is none of those things either. In fact (heh) I would say that any formal reasoning system is not fact, opinion, or "reasoned argument".

And then there is fiction.

Thus it is safe to say that most of what is on the internet is none of those things.

[Downwinder]

6. Explains Wall Street.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. It is interesting that McBrayer's ethics allow him to skip the part about his own faith

and present himself purely as an academic in philosophy. On other occasions he presents himself as a 'skeptical theist'. I guess his identity is framed for the room to which he is speaking. I find that to be a bit unethical.

[fasttense]

8. Teaching children the definition of the words fact and opi

Does NOT lead to moral relativism. These same children will later be taught the nuances of these words and many others by the society they live in. All of us are thoroughly educated by the people around us.

It is our cut throat capitalistic economic system that benefits the most from an attitude of moral relativism. You can NOT be a proud and successful Capitalist without ignoring the suffering around you. Moral relativism comes in quite handy when trying to justify your success at the expense of others.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

9. this poor man needs some education

He must have skipped the Kant courses.

[Nitram]

10. Me: “So it’s both a fact and an opinion?”

It is an opinion if you cannot find evidence for the truth of the statement. It is possibly true if you can. the more evidence in favor of the statement there is, the more likely it is a fact. The distinction is a useful one.

All of the statements in the list are opinion. The first, for example, would be fact if it stated, "Copying homework assignments will be punished by a failing grade or suspension."

The statement, "drug dealers belong in prison" is pure opinion, as is the statement, "All drugs are harmful."

If you want to discuss ethics and morality, that's a different sphere than the difference between fact and opinion. The problem with teaching ethics is in deciding which code of ethics to impose on the student body. Perhaps the best way to "teach" ethics and morality is a survey course on the way various philosophers approached to the problem. In the end, the individual must decide for his or herself what is ethical and moral. Of course, one can also blindly follow a religion, or accept the belief system of one's parents.

[cprise]

11. He makes an interesting point

I think what the naysayers in this thread are assuming is that moral facts aren't grounded in hard facts or experience; that morality must be separate so that "facts" can be physically pure.

Since fact-making is always a cultural process (scientific discoveries don't become established as facts until there is competitive corroboration) you can't necessarily remove culture from the essence of 'fact'. An especially salient example is if students skip or cheat on their homework then they undermine the very aspect of our culture that deals with facts. That is one way a moral position like 'Copying homework assignments is wrong' can also be a fact.

I think McBrayer may have pointed out the pedagogical offspring of the postmodernism that became popular in the late 20th century.

With that said, although I do believe in "good", "bad", "right" and "wrong", I see them as more of a continuum than dualities. And BTW, I think this marks a true difference between a progressive and a conservative... the latter are locked in dualities, and also locked in moralism because the measured world rarely appears in black and white.

[Dont call me Shirley]

12. I remember when my child brought home those ridiculous (fact or opinion?) assignments.

I answered most of the questions wrong, an a lot of hmmm let me think about that one. The scientific fact questions I did answer correctly. Most of the questions were relative though. There needs to be the third category added when the questions are not scientific or mathematical...Is it Ethical (okay or not okay)?

Rotten To The Core is really fucking up our kids thinking......Fact or Opinion?

[Demeter]

13. Too bad he never took any comparative anthopology

or similar studies, where morals and mores are shown to be culturally determined...

or the study of pure ethics, which would show that the only viable ethics are situational.