Ideal Observer Theory
The sample essay on Ideal Observer Theory deals with a framework of research-based facts, approaches and arguments concerning this theme. To see the essay’s introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion, read on.
Firth’s Ideal Observer Theory suggests that an ethical statement like “x is right” means, “any Ideal observer would react to x” (Firth, P. 209) by producing an alpha reaction. The following are the characteristics of an Ideal Observer: Omniscient with respect to the non-moral facts, omnipercipient, disinterested, dispassionate, consistent and “normal”.
In this essay, I will attempt to explain and justify why opposition to the “omniscience” characteristic is the most powerful objection to the Ideal Observer Theory, while construing possible rebuttals for Firth.
To begin with, Firth made “omniscient with respect to non-ethical facts” a characteristic of an Ideal Observer because “we regard one person as a better moral judge than another if, other things being equal, the one has a larger amount of relevant factual knowledge than the other.
” (Firth, 1970: P. 212) Also, Firth specified about being omniscient with respect to non-ethical facts seeing that rational procedures are vital to an Ideal Observer for deciding ethical questions, but “there are many ethical questions which cannot be decided by inference from ethical premises” (Firth, P. 13), meaning that ethical facts are not essential, while non-ethical facts are. As mentioned before, the larger amount of relevant factual knowledge one possesses enables him to be regarded as a better moral judge. If so, then why did Firth make the Ideal Observer omniscient when grasping all the relevant facts is adequate? This is because Firth believes that the notion of relevance cannot be “employed in defining an ideal observer,” (Firth, P.
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213) as, by pointing out that some facts are irrelevant, we will also be specifying that an Ideal Observer’s alpha reaction would be the same whether or not he possesses such facts.
Omnipercipience
As an entailment, “in order to explain what we mean by relevant knowledge, we should have to employ the very concept of Ideal observer which we are attempting to define. ” (Firth, P. 212) In other words, to identify what facts are relevant would make the theory circular. Therefore, Firth just allows the ideal observer to have all knowledge (omniscient), as “there is no other practicable way of specifying which facts a person must know in order to know all the ethically relevant facts, without circularity” (Brandt, P. 410). Plus, there does not seem to be anything wrong with including this extra knowledge.
As the reasons why Firth made the Ideal Observer omniscient are demonstrated, it would be interesting to look at the objections against this characteristic of his theory. To begin with, objectors might argue that the feature of omniscience is not compatible with human beings. They would say that it is impossible for a person to learn all facts or grasp all knowledge, unless he is a god. Therefore, such a requirement for Firth’s theory would entail that there are actually no Ideal Observers at all. However, Firth could possibly reply by saying that it is metaphysically possible for a human to grasp all knowledge.
Currently, human beings have only used up 3% of their brains capacity, so you cannot deny that there is the possibility that human beings can comprehend the truth of all propositions. Perhaps all the knowledge combined will not be able to use up the full capacity of the brain. Plus, one cannot deny the possibility that god can create an omniscient human being. Against such a reply, people would say that the creation of an omniscient human being is impossible because a finite brain cannot grasp an infinite number of propositions.
Since Firth had wrote in his article “omniscience implies complete knowledge of the past as well as the future”. (Firth, P. 213) The future is infinite, propositions in the future are also infinite, and therefore eventually it will reach a point where the finite brain will no longer be able to take in additional propositions. To refute such a counterargument, Firth would probably say that it is possible for god to create a human being that has a brain with infinite capacity, entailing the possibility for the being to be omniscient. The omniscience condition of Firth’s Ideal Observer Theory remains valid.
Apart from the argument that omniscience is incompatible with human beings, objectors could also contend that the feature of omniscience “eat away at the human characteristics of the Ideal Observer. ” (Brandt, p. 409) This means that the Ideal Observer would no longer experience certain feelings that human beings usually have. Examples of these feelings would be the shock from winning a lottery, disappointment and despair from knowing that you have cancer, or anxiety that is aroused due to ignorance of the future, like not knowing the result of your job interview.
This also conflicts with the 6th condition of the Ideal Observer Theory that suggests that the Ideal Observer would be “normal”, he would be a person, and “not a superman or a super-natural being. ” (Martin, P. 4) When the omniscience characteristic of the Ideal Observer allows him to know every single proposition, including the ones in the past or future, how much of a person can he be, it would seem to most people that the Ideal Observer is more like a superman. And when all those feelings like shock, disappointment and anxiety are absent in the Ideal Observer, people would question, how much of him can actually be “normal”?
This argument, combined with the previous one, brings out the question – “Apart from god, is there a being that actually answers to the description of the Ideal Observer theory? ” As a rebuttal towards this objection, Firth could probably argue by saying that whether something answers to the theory’s description is irrelevant, the purpose of his theory is to discover the truth of an ethical statement like “x is right”, and whether an Ideal Observer actually exists should be separated from the issue.
Furthermore, another criticism can be made against Firth by saying that the omniscience feature overlaps with the omnipercipience feature of the theory. The idea of omnipercipience is that “it’s not enough just to know that someone is in pain; rather one must have a sense of the pain, or know what it’s like to feel the pain. ” (Martin, P. 3) Objectors would argue that such sensory feelings can already be experienced by the Ideal Observer if he is omniscient, the first hand experience of someone’s pain is also one of the infinite propositions that an omniscient Ideal Observer would “know”.
Therefore, objectors would argue that the omnipercipience condition could have just collapsed into the omniscience one, and it is now repetitive with the first condition overlapping with the second. In order to address such a criticism, Firth could probably reply by emphasizing the importance of the omnipercipience condition, wrong acts like murdering are committed because the criminal cannot imagine the pain of the victim. If the murderer had any sense of how much pain he inflicted, he never would have acted so! ” (Martin, p. 3) It is true that the omniscience condition includes the omnipercipience condition, but people might overlook this important feature if Firth collapsed the two conditions into one. Therefore, he could refute the criticism of him being repetitive by saying that the overlapping is actually good because it makes sure that no one fails to notice the significance of the omnipercipience condition.
By separating this condition from the omniscience condition, his theory would be more explicit and less prone to misunderstanding. Finally, the last objection to the omniscience feature of the Ideal Observer Theory is that it does not actually avoid circularity. Although the omniscience condition was originally used as a means to avoid circularity, objectors could say that even if the Ideal Observer is omniscient, he must still make his judgment (x is right) on the basis of all and only the relevant facts.
As shown before, identifying which facts are relevant requires the conception of the Ideal Observer Theory to be employed and at the same time it is this very conception that we are trying to define. (Circularity) Therefore, since the judgment is made on the basis of all and only the relevant facts, it is circular and the omniscience feature does not actually avoid this problem. To address this last objection, Firth would probably reply in two ways.
First of all, he would refute by saying that there is no need for the Ideal Observer to have any information of relevance, or to know what facts are actually relevant. He can argue that the judgments that an Ideal Observer makes constitute rightness and wrongness within it, therefore all the judgments he makes are by definition right, meaning that he does not need to have any knowledge of relevance at all. However, this argument is very prone to opposition, objectors would argue that Firth inserted the feature of omniscience to ensure that the Ideal Observer knows which facts are relevant.
If you say that he does not need any information of relevance at all, then he does not need any knowledge! Therefore, if the Ideal Observer does not have information about relevance, he is no better than a person that knows nothing. This means that there is no reason for us to accept the definition of “right” from such an unknowledgeable Ideal Observer. This defeats the purpose of Firth’s theory because it was meant to formulate a satisfactory analysis of ethical statements.
The second reply that Firth might give is that it is possible to include relevance in a non-circular way while defining the Ideal Observer. If a non-circular way to identify relevant facts can be specified, the problem will be fixed because objectors are saying that the omniscience feature does not actually avoid circularity. However, the objectors can also easily counter this claim. They could simply argue that this option is not open to Firth because he himself said that the Ideal Observer could not know the relevant facts without circularity. To say that the ideal observer knows that a particular fact is not relevant to an ethical judgment is to say, assuming that an absolutist dispositional analysis is correct, that he would know that his dispositions to make the particular judgment would be the same whether or not he possessed that particular fact. ” (Firth, P. 212) Since the replies that Firth would probably propose could be countered, and I cannot think of how Firth could possibly recounter them. This justifies why I think that this is the strongest opposition to Firth’s Ideal Observer Theory.
By suggesting that the omniscience feature does not get rid of the circularity problem, it actually puts Firth into a dilemma. Since he cannot specify relevant facts in a non-circular way, he either has to allow his theory to be rejected as circular, or he has to reject that the Ideal Observer needs any information of relevance, but that would entail that his Ideal Observer is no better than someone that is totally unknowledgeable, hence his theory would be unworthy as an analysis of an ethical statement, as demonstrated above.
To recapture, I have shown that people would argue against the omniscience feature of Firth’s Ideal Observer Theory in a few ways. However, it is only the last objection, which says that omniscience does not actually avoid circularity, that Firth would be unable to resolve, and it would even put him into a dilemma which either makes his theory rejectable as circular or unworthy as an analysis of ethical statements. For this reason, I would say that it is the strongest objection to Firth’s Ideal Observer Theory.
References Brandt, Richard. (1950) “The Definition of an ‘Ideal Observer’ Theory in Ethics,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, XV, 414-421. Firth, R. (1970). “Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer”. In W. Sellars & J. Hospers (Eds. ), Readings in Ethical Theory (pp. 200 – 221). Appleton-Century-Crofts. Martin, M. R. (2010). Theories of Morality: Lecture Notes for Topic 7 (Ethical absolutism and the Ideal Observer Theory. )
Ideal Observer Theory. (2019, Dec 07). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/paper-on-essay-think-powerful-objection-ideal-observer-theory-3/
