Objectivity

The terms "objectivity" and "subjectivity," in their modern usage,
generally relate to a perceiving subject (normally a person) and a
perceived or unperceived object. The object is something that
presumably exists independent of the subject's perception of it. In
other words, the object would "be there," as it is, even if no subject
perceived it. Hence, objectivity is typically associated with ideas
such as reality, truth and reliability.

The perceiving subject can either perceive accurately or seem to
perceive features of the object that are not in the object. For
example, a perceiving subject suffering from jaundice could seem to
perceive an object as yellow when the object is not actually yellow.
Hence, the term "subjective" typically indicates the possibility of
error.

The potential for discrepancies between features of the subject's
perceptual impressions and the real qualities of the perceived object
generates philosophical questions. There are also philosophical
questions regarding the nature of objective reality and the nature of
our so-called subjective reality. Consequently, we have various uses
of the terms "objective" and "subjective" and their cognates to
express possible differences between objective reality and subjective
impressions. Philosophers refer to perceptual impressions themselves
as being subjective or objective. Consequent judgments are objective
or subjective to varying degrees, and we divide reality into objective
reality and subjective reality. Thus, it is important to distinguish
the various uses of the terms "objective" and "subjective."

1. Terminology

Many philosophers would use the term "objective reality" to refer to
anything that exists as it is independent of any conscious awareness
of it (via perception, thought, etc.). Common mid-sized physical
objects presumably apply, as do persons having subjective states.
Subjective reality would then include anything depending upon some
(broadly construed) conscious awareness of it to exist. Particular
instances of colors and sounds (as they are perceived) are prime
examples of things that exist only when there are appropriate
conscious states. Particular instances of emotions (e.g., my present
happiness) also seem to be a subjective reality, existing when one
feels them, and ceasing to exist when one's mood changes.

"Objective knowledge" can simply refer to knowledge of an objective
reality. Subjective knowledge would then be knowledge of any
subjective reality.

There are, however, other uses of the terminology related to
objectivity. Many philosophers use the term "subjective knowledge" to
refer only to knowledge of one's own subjective states. Such knowledge
is distinguished from one's knowledge of another individual's
subjective states and from knowledge of objective reality, which would
both be objective knowledge under the present definitions. Your
knowledge of another person's subjective states can be called
objective knowledge since it is presumably part of the world that is
"object" for you, just as you and your subjective states are part of
the world that is "object" for the other person.

This is a prominent distinction in epistemology (the philosophical
study of knowledge) because many philosophers have maintained that
subjective knowledge in this sense has a special status. They assert,
roughly, that knowledge of one's own subjective states is direct, or
immediate, in a way that knowledge of anything else is not. It is
convenient to refer to knowledge of one's own subjective states simply
as subjective knowledge. Following this definition, objective
knowledge would be knowledge of anything other than one's own
subjective states.

One last prominent style of usage for terms related to objectivity
deals with the nature of support a particular knowledge-claim has.
"Objective knowledge" can designate a knowledge-claim having, roughly,
the status of being fully supported or proven. Correspondingly,
"subjective knowledge" might designate some unsupported or weakly
supported knowledge-claim. It is more accurate to refer to these as
objective and subjective judgments, rather than knowledge, but one
should be on guard for the use of the term "knowledge" in this
context. This usage fits with the general connotation for the term
"objectivity" of solidity, trustworthiness, accuracy, impartiality,
etc. The general connotation for many uses of "subjectivity" includes
unreliability, bias, an incomplete (personal) perspective, etc.

"Objective judgment or belief" refers to a judgment or belief based on
objectively strong supporting evidence, the sort of evidence that
would be compelling for any rational being. A subjective judgment
would then seem to be a judgment or belief supported by evidence that
is compelling for some rational beings (subjects) but not compelling
for others. It could also refer to a judgment based on evidence that
is of necessity available only to some subjects.

These are the main uses for the terminology within philosophical
discussions. Let's examine some of the main epistemological issues
regarding objectivity, presuming the aforementioned definitions of
"objective reality" and "subjective reality."
2. Epistemological Issues
a. Can We Know Objective Reality?

The subjective is characterized primarily by perceiving mind. The
objective is characterized primarily by physical extension in space
and time. The simplest sort of discrepancy between subjective judgment
and objective reality is well illustrated by John Locke's example of
holding one hand in ice water and the other hand in hot water for a
few moments. When one places both hands into a bucket of tepid water,
one experiences competing subjective experiences of one and the same
objective reality. One hand feels it as cold, the other feels it as
hot. Thus, one perceiving mind can hold side-by-side clearly differing
impressions of a single object. From this experience, it seems to
follow that two different perceiving minds could have clearly
differing impressions of a single object. That is, two people could
put their hands into the bucket of water, one describing it as cold,
the other describing it as hot. Or, more plausibly, two people could
step outside, one describing the weather as chilly, the other
describing it as pleasant.

We confront, then, an epistemological challenge to explain whether,
and if so how, some subjective impressions can lead to knowledge of
objective reality. A skeptic can contend that our knowledge is limited
to the realm of our own subjective impressions, allowing us no
knowledge of objective reality as it is in itself.
b. Does Agreement Among Subjects Indicate Objective Knowledge?

Measurement is allegedly a means to reach objective judgments,
judgments having at least a high probability of expressing truth
regarding objective reality. An objective judgment regarding the
weather, in contrast to the competing subjective descriptions, would
describe it as, say, 20°C (68°F). This judgment results from use of a
measuring device. It is unlikely that the two perceiving subjects,
using functioning thermometers, would have differing judgments about
the outside air.

The example of two people giving differing reports about the weather
(e.g., "chilly" vs. "pleasant") illustrates that variation in
different subjects' judgments is a possible indicator of the
subjectivity of their judgments. Agreement in different subjects'
judgments (20°C) is often taken to be indicative of objectivity.
Philosophers commonly call this form of agreement "intersubjective
agreement." Does intersubjective agreement prove that there is
objective truth? No, because having two or three or more perceiving
subjects agreeing, for example, that it is very cold does not preclude
the possibility of another perceiving subject claiming that it is not
at all cold. Would we have a high likelihood of objective truth if we
had intersubjective agreement among a large number of subjects? This
line of reasoning seems promising, except for another observation from
Locke about the possible discrepancies between subjective impressions
and objective reality.
c. Primary and Secondary Qualities: Can We Know Primary Qualities?

According to Locke's distinction between primary and secondary
qualities, some of our subjective impressions do not correspond to any
objective reality in the thing perceived. Our perception of sound, for
example, is nothing like the actual physical vibrations that we know
are the real cause of our subjective experience. Our perception of
color is nothing like the complex combinations of various frequencies
of electromagnetic radiation that we know cause our perception of
color. Locke asserts that we can, through science, come to know what
primary characteristics the object has in itself. Science teaches us,
he says, that sound as we perceive it is not in the object itself
whereas spatial dimensions, mass, duration, motion, etc. are in the
object itself.

In response to this point, one can assert that, through science, we
discover that those subjective impressions corresponding to nothing in
the object are nonetheless caused by the truly objective features of
the object. Thus, Locke's approach leads to optimism regarding
objective knowledge, i.e., knowledge of how things are independent of
our perceptions of them.
d. Skepticism Regarding Knowledge of Objective Reality

In response to Locke's line of thinking, Immanuel Kant used the
expression "Ding an sich" (the "thing-in-itself") to designate pure
objectivity. The Ding an sich is the object as it is in itself,
independent of the features of any subjective perception of it. While
Locke was optimistic about scientific knowledge of the true objective
(primary) characteristics of things, Kant, influenced by skeptical
arguments from David Hume, asserted that we can know nothing regarding
the true nature of the Ding an sich, other than that it exists.
Scientific knowledge, according to Kant, is systematic knowledge of
the nature of things as they appear to us subjects rather than as they
are in themselves.

Using Kant's distinction, intersubjective agreement would seem to be
not only the best evidence we can have of objective truth but
constitutive of objective truth itself. (This might require a
theoretically perfect intersubjective agreement under ideal
conditions.) Starting from the assumption that we can have knowledge
only of things as they appear in subjective experience, the only
plausible sense for the term "objective" would be judgments for which
there is universal intersubjective agreement, or just for which there
is necessarily universal agreement. If, alternately, we decide to
restrict the term "objective" to the Ding an sich, there would be,
according to Kant, no objective knowledge. The notion of objectivity
thus becomes useless, perhaps even meaningless (for, say, a
verificationist).

Facing any brand of skepticism regarding knowledge of objective
reality in any robust sense, we should note that the notion of there
being an objective reality is independent of any particular assertion
about our prospects for knowing that reality in any objective sense.
One should, in other words, agree that the idea of some objective
reality, existing as it is independent of any subjective perception of
it, apparently makes sense even for one who holds little hope for any
of us knowing that there is such a reality, or knowing anything
objectively about such a reality. Perhaps our human situation is such
that we cannot know anything beyond our experiences; perhaps we are,
each one of us individually, confined to the theater of our own minds.
Nonetheless, we can conceive what it means to assert an objective
reality beyond the stream of our experiences.
e. Defending Objective Knowledge

Opposing skepticism regarding objective reality, it is conceivable
that there are "markers" of some sort in our subjective experiences
distinguishing the reliable perceptions of objective truth from the
illusions generated purely subjectively (hallucinations,
misperceptions, perceptions of secondary qualities, etc.). Descartes,
for example, wrote of "clear and distinct impressions" as having an
inherent mark, as it were, attesting to their reliability as
indicators of how things are objectively. This idea does not have many
defenders today, however, since Descartes asserted certainty for
knowledge derived from clear and distinct ideas. More acceptable among
philosophers today would be a more modest assertion of a high
likelihood of reliability for subjective impressions bearing certain
marks. The marks of reliable impressions are not "clear and distinct"
in Descartes' sense, but have some connection to common sense ideas
about optimal perceptual circumstances. Thus, defenders of objective
knowledge are well advised to search for subjectively accessible
"marks" on impressions that indicate a high likelihood of truth.

A defender of the prospects for objective knowledge would apparently
want also to give some significance to intersubjective agreement.
Assertions of intersubjective agreement are based, of course, on one's
subjective impressions of other perceiving subjects agreeing with
one's own judgments. Thus, intersubjective agreement is just one type
of "mark" one might use to identify the more likely reliable
impressions. This is simple common-sense. We have much more confidence
in our judgments (or should, anyway) when they are shared by virtually
everyone with whom we discuss them than when others (showing every
sign of normal perceptual abilities and a sane mind) disagree. A
central assumption behind this common pattern of thought, however, is
that there are indeed many other perceiving subjects besides ourselves
and we are all capable, sometimes at least, of knowing objective
reality. Another assumption is that objective reality is logically
consistent. Assuming that reality is consistent, it follows that your
and my logically incompatible judgments about a thing cannot both be
true; intersubjective disagreement indicates error for at least one of
us. One can also argue that agreement indicates probable truth,
because it is unlikely that you and I would both be wrong in our
judgment regarding an object and both be wrong in exactly the same
way. Conversely, if we were both wrong about some object, it is likely
that we would have differing incorrect judgments about it, since there
are innumerable ways for us to make a wrong judgment about an object.
f. Is There No Escape From the Subjective?

Despite plausible ways of arguing that intersubjective disagreement
indicates error and agreement indicates some probability of truth,
defenses of objective knowledge all face the philosophically daunting
challenge of providing a cogent argument showing that any purported
"mark" of reliability (including apparent intersubjective agreement)
actually does confer a high likelihood of truth. The task seems to
presuppose some method of determining objective truth in the very
process of establishing certain sorts of subjective impressions as
reliable indicators of truth. That is, we require some independent
(non-subjective) way of determining which subjective impressions
support knowledge of objective reality before we can find subjectively
accessible "markers" of the reliable subjective impressions. What
could such a method be, since every method of knowledge, judgment, or
even thought seems quite clearly to go on within the realm of
subjective impressions? One cannot get out of one's subjective
impressions, it seems, to test them for reliability. The prospects for
knowledge of the objective world are hampered by our essential
confinement within subjective impressions.
3. Metaphysical Issues

In metaphysics, i.e., the philosophical study of the nature of
reality, the topic of objectivity brings up philosophical puzzles
regarding the nature of the self, for a perceiving subject is also,
according to most metaphysical theories, a potential object of someone
else's perceptions. Further, one can perceive oneself as an object, in
addition to knowing one's subjective states fairly directly. The self,
then, is known both as subject and as object. Knowledge of self as
subject seems to differ significantly from knowledge of the self as
object.

The differences are most markedly in evidence in the philosophy of
mind. Philosophers of mind try to reconcile, in some sense, what we
know about the mind objectively and what we know subjectively.
Observing minded beings as objects is central to the methods of
psychology, sociology, and the sciences of the brain. Observing one
minded being from the subjective point of view is something we all do,
and it is central to our ordinary notions of the nature of mind. A
fundamental problem for the philosophy of mind is to explain how any
object, no matter how complex, can give rise to mind as we know it
from the subjective point of view. That is, how can mere "stuff" give
rise to the rich complexity of consciousness as we experience it? It
seems quite conceivable that there be creatures exactly like us, when
seen as objects, but having nothing like our conscious sense of
ourselves as subjects. So there is the question of why we do have
subjective conscious experience and how that comes to be. Philosophers
also struggle to explain what sort of relationship might obtain
between mind as we see it embodied objectively and mind as we
experience it subjectively. Are there cause-and-effect relationships,
for example, and how do they work?

The topic of seeing others and even oneself as an object in the
objective world is a metaphysical issue, but it brings up an ethical
issue regarding the treatment of persons. There are, in addition,
special philosophical issues regarding assertions of objectivity in
ethics.
4. Objectivity in Ethics
a. Persons in contrast to objects

First, the dual nature of persons as both subjects (having subjective
experience) and objects within objective reality relates to one of the
paramount theories of ethics in the history of philosophy. Immanuel
Kant's ethics gives a place of central importance to respect for
persons. One formulation of his highly influential Categorical
Imperative relates to the dual nature of persons. This version demands
that one "treat humanity, in your own person or in the person of any
other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end"
(Groundwork, p. 96). One may treat a mere object simply as a means to
an end; one may use a piece of wood, for example, simply as a means of
repairing a fence. A person, by contrast, is marked by subjectivity,
having a subjective point of view, and has a special moral status
according to Kant. Every person must be regarded as an end, that is as
having intrinsic value. It seems that the inherent value of a person
depends essentially on the fact that a person has a subjective
conscious life in addition to objective existence.

This ethical distinction brings out an aspect of the term "object" as
a "mere object," in contrast to the subjectivity of a person. The term
"objectivity" in this context can signify the mere "object-ness" of
something at its moral status.

Despite widespread agreement that being a person with a subjective
point of view has a special moral status, there is a general
difficulty explaining whether this alleged fact, like all alleged
moral facts, is an objective fact in any sense. It is also difficult
to explain how one can know moral truths if they are indeed objective.
b. Objectivism, Subjectivism and Non-cognitivism

Philosophical theories about the nature of morality generally divide
into assertions that moral truths express subjective states and
assertions that moral truths express objective facts, analogous to the
fact, for example, that the sun is more massive than the earth.

So-called subjectivist theories regard moral statements as declaring
that certain facts hold, but the facts expressed are facts about a
person's subjective states. For example, the statement "It is wrong to
ignore a person in distress if you are able to offer aid" just means
something like "I find it offensive when someone ignores a person in
distress…." This is a statement about the subject's perceptions of the
object, not about the object itself (that is, ignoring a person in
distress). Objectivist theories, in contrast, regard the statement "It
is wrong to ignore…." as stating a fact about the ignoring itself.

Subjectivist theories do not have to regard moral statements as
statements about a single subject's perceptions or feelings. A
subjectivist could regard the statement "Torture is immoral," for
example, as merely expressing the feeling of abhorrence among members
of a certain culture, or among people in general.

In addition to objectivism and subjectivism, a third major theory of
morality called non-cognitivism asserts that alleged moral statements
do not make any claim about any reality, either subjective or
objective. This approach asserts that alleged moral statements are
just expressions of subjective feelings; they are not reports about
such feelings. Thus the statement "Torture is immoral" is equivalent
to wincing or saying "ugh" at the thought of torture, rather than
describing your feelings about torture.
c. Objectivist Theories

Among objectivist theories of morality, the most straightforward
version declares that is it an objective fact, for example, that it is
wrong to ignore a person in distress if you are able to offer aid.
This sort of theory asserts that the wrongness of such behavior is
part of objective reality in the same way that the sun's being more
massive than the earth is part of objective reality. Both facts would
obtain regardless of whether any conscious being ever came to know
either of them.

Other objectivist theories of morality try to explain the widespread
feeling that there is an important difference between moral assertions
and descriptive, factual assertions while maintaining that both types
of assertion are about something other than mere subjective states.
Such theories compare moral assertions to assertions about secondary
qualities. The declaration that a certain object is green is not
merely a statement about a person's subjective state. It makes an
assertion about how the object is, but it's an assertion that can be
formulated only in relation to the states of perceiving subjects under
the right conditions. Thus, determining whether an object is green
depends essentially on consulting the considered judgments of
appropriately placed perceivers. Being green, by definition, implies
the capacity to affect perceiving humans under the right conditions in
certain ways. By analogy, moral assertions can be assertions about how
things objectively are while depending essentially on consulting the
considered judgments of appropriately placed perceivers. Being morally
wrong implies, on this view, the capacity to affect perceiving humans
under the right conditions in certain ways.
d. Can We Know Moral Facts?

For either sort of objectivist approach to morality, it is difficult
to explain how people come to know the moral properties of things. We
seem not to be able to know the moral qualities of things through
ordinary sense experience, for example, because the five senses seem
only to tell us how things are in the world, not how they ought to be.
Nor can we reason from the way things are to the way they ought to be,
since, as David Hume noted, "is" does not logically imply an "ought."
Some philosophers, including Hume, have postulated that we have a
special mode of moral perception, analogous to but beyond the five
ordinary senses, which gives us knowledge of moral facts. This
proposal is controversial, since it presents problems for verifying
moral perceptions and resolving moral disputes. It is also problematic
as long as it provides no account of how moral perception works. By
contrast, we have a good understanding of the mechanisms underlying
our perception of secondary qualities such as greenness.

Many people assert that it is much less common to get widespread
agreement on moral judgments than on matters of observable, measurable
facts. Such an assertion seems to be an attempt to argue that moral
judgments are not objective based on lack of intersubjective agreement
about them. Widespread disagreement does not, however, indicate that
there is no objective fact to be known. There are many examples of
widespread disagreement regarding facts that are clearly objective.
For example, there was once widespread disagreement about whether the
universe is expanding or in a "steady state." That disagreement did
not indicate that there is no objective fact concerning the state of
the universe. Thus, widespread disagreement regarding moral judgments
would not, by itself, indicate that there are no objective moral
facts.

This assertion is apparently an attempt to modify the inference from
widespread intersubjective agreement to objective truth. If so, it is
mistaken. Assuming that the inference from intersubjective agreement
to probable objective truth is strong, it does not follow that one can
infer from lack of intersubjective agreement to probable subjectivity.
As previously indicated, intersubjective disagreement logically
supports the assertion that there is an error in at least one of the
conflicting judgments, but it does not support an assertion of the
mere subjectivity of the matter being judged. Further, the vast areas
of near-universal agreement in moral judgments typically receives too
little attention in discussions of the nature of morality. There are
seemingly innumerable moral judgments (e.g., it is wrong to needlessly
inflict pain on a newborn baby) that enjoy nearly universal agreement
across cultures and across time periods. This agreement should, at
least prima facie, support an assertion to objectivity as it does for,
say, judgments about the temperature outside.
5. Major Historical Philosophical Theories of Objective Reality

Any serious study of the nature of objectivity and objective knowledge
should examine the central metaphysical and epistemological positions
of history's leading philosophers, as well as contemporary
contributions. The following very brief survey should give readers
some idea of where to get started.

Plato is famous for a distinctive view of objective reality. He
asserted roughly that the greatest reality was not in the ordinary
physical objects we sense around us, but in what he calls Forms, or
Ideas. (The Greek term Plato uses resembles the word "idea," but it is
preferable to call them Forms, for they are not ideas that exist only
in a mind, as is suggested in our modern usage of the term "idea.")
Ordinary objects of our sense experience are real, but the Forms are a
"higher reality," according to Plato. Having the greatest reality,
they are the only truly objective reality, we could say.

Forms are most simply described as the pure essences of things, or the
defining characteristics of things. We see many varied instances of
chairs around us, but the essence of what it is to be a chair is the
Form "chair." Likewise, we see many beautiful things around us, but
the Form "beauty" is the "what it is to be beautiful." The Form is
simply whatever it is that sets beautiful things apart from everything
else.

In epistemology, Plato accordingly distinguishes the highest knowledge
as knowledge of the highest reality, the Forms. Our modern usage of
the terms "objective knowledge" and "objective reality" seem to fit in
reasonably well here.

Aristotle, by contrast, identifies the ordinary objects of sense
experience as the most objective reality. He calls them "primary
substance." The forms of things he calls "secondary substance." Hence,
Aristotle's metaphysics seems to fit better than Plato's with our
current understanding of objective reality, but his view of objective
knowledge differs somewhat. For him, objective knowledge is knowledge
of the forms, or essences, of things. We can know individual things
objectively, but not perfectly. We can know individuals only during
occurrent perceptual contact with them, but we can know forms
perfectly, or timelessly.

Descartes famously emphasized that subjective reality is better known
than objective reality, but knowledge of the objective reality of
one's own existence as a non-physical thinking thing is nearly as
basic, or perhaps as basic, as one's knowledge of the subjective
reality of one's own thinking. For Descartes, knowledge seems to start
with immediate, indubitable knowledge of one's subjective states and
proceeds to knowledge of one's objective existence as a thinking
thing. Cogito, ergo sum (usually translated as "I think, therefore I
am") expresses this knowledge. All knowledge of realities other than
oneself ultimately rests on this immediate knowledge of one's own
existence as a thinking thing. One's existence as a non-physical
thinking thing is an objective existence, but it appears that
Descartes infers this existence from the subjective reality of his own
thinking. The exact interpretation of his famous saying is still a
matter of some controversy, however, and it may not express an
inference at all.

We have already looked at some of John Locke's most influential
assertions about the nature of objective reality. Bishop Berkeley
followed Locke's empiricism in epistemology, but put forth a markedly
different view of reality. Berkeley's Idealism asserts that the only
realities are minds and mental contents. He does, however, have a
concept of objective reality. A table, for example, exists objectively
in the mind of God. God creates objective reality by thinking it and
sustains any objective reality, such as the table, only so long as he
continues to think of it. Thus the table exists objectively for us,
not just as a fleeting perception, but as the totality of all possible
experiences of it. My particular experience of it at this moment is a
subjective reality, but the table as an objective reality in the mind
of God implies a totality of all possible experiences of it. Berkeley
asserts there is no need to postulate some physical substance
underlying all those experiences to be the objective reality of the
table; the totality of possible experiences is adequate.

We have looked briefly at some of Kant's claims about the nature of
objective reality. More recent philosophy continues these discussions
in many directions, some denying objectivity altogether. Detailed
discussion of these movements goes beyond the purview of this essay,
but interested readers should specially investigate Hegel's idealism,
as well as succeeding schools of thought such as phenomenology,
existentialism, logical positivism, pragmatism, deconstructionism, and
post-modernism. The philosophy of mind, naturally, also continually
confronts basic questions of subjectivity and objectivity.
6. References and Further Reading
Alston, William P. "Yes, Virginia, There is a Real World." Proceedings
and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 52 (1979):
779-808.
Descartes, Rene. Meditations (1641). In The Philosophical Writings of
Descartes, eds. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1975).
Kant, Immanuel. Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics (1783). Trans.
James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977).
Locke, John. Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). Ed. Peter
Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).
Moser, Paul. Philosophy After Objectivity. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993).
Nagel, Thomas. The View From Nowhere. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
Quine, W. V. Word and Object. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960).
Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1979).
Rorty, Richard. Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical
Papers, Vol. 1. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Wright, Crispin. Realism, Meaning, and Truth. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).