What Do You Think Is the Most Powerful Objection to the Ideal Observer Theory? How Might Firth or Some Other Defender of the Ideal Observer Theory Reply to This Objection?

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. 213), 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.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. 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

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.)