Contemporary Metaethics E-Book

Alexander Miller

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 680

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

This new edition of Alexander Miller’s highly readable introduction to contemporary metaethics provides a critical overview of the main arguments and themes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century contemporary metaethics. Miller traces the development of contemporary debates in metaethics from their beginnings in the work of G. E. Moore up to the most recent arguments between naturalism and non-naturalism, cognitivism and non-cognitivism.

From Moore’s attack on ethical naturalism, A. J. Ayer’s emotivism and Simon Blackburn’s quasi-realism to anti-realist and best opinion accounts of moral truth and the non-reductionist naturalism of the ‘Cornell realists’, this book addresses all the key theories and ideas in this field. As well as revisiting the whole terrain with revised and updated guides to further reading, Miller also introduces major new sections on the revolutionary fictionalism of Richard Joyce and the hermeneutic fictionalism of Mark Kalderon.

The new edition will continue to be essential reading for students, teachers and professional philosophers with an interest in contemporary metaethics.

Leseprobe

Contemporary Metaethics

For my mother and father, John and Isabella

Contemporary Metaethics

An Introduction

Second Edition

Alexander Miller

polity

The right of Alexander Miller to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2013 by Polity Press

First edition published in 2003 by Polity Press

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press350 Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8051-4

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.politybooks.com

Contents

Detailed Chapter Contents

Preface to the First Edition (2003)

Preface to the Second Edition (2013)

1   Introduction

2   Moore’s Attack on Ethical Naturalism

3   Emotivism and the Rejection of Non-Naturalism

4   Blackburn’s Quasi-Realism

5   Gibbard’s Norm-Expressivism

6   Mackie’s ‘Error-Theory’, the Argument from Queerness and Moral Fictionalism

7   Judgement-Dependent Accounts of Moral Qualities

8   Naturalism I – Cornell Realism

9   Naturalism II – Reductionism

10  Contemporary Non-Naturalism – McDowell’s Moral Realism

Appendix: Sense, Reference, Semantic Value and Truth-Conditions

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Detailed Chapter Contents

Detailed Chapter Contents

Preface to the First Edition (2003)

Preface to the Second Edition (2013)

  1  Introduction

1.1    What is Metaethics?

1.2    Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism

1.3    Strong Cognitivism: Naturalism

1.4    Strong Cognitivism: Non-Naturalism

1.5    Strong Cognitivism without Moral Realism: Mackie’s Error-Theory

1.6    Weak Cognitivism about Morals without Moral Realism: Response-Dependence Theories

1.7    Non-Cognitivism

1.8    Internalism and Externalism, Humeanism and Anti-Humeanism

1.9    Further Reading

1.10  Flowchart of Main Metaethical Theories

  2  Moore’s Attack on Ethical Naturalism

2.1    Moore’s Strong Cognitivism and Account of ‘Natural’

Moore on ‘natural’

Was Moore a strong cognitivist?

2.2    The Naturalistic Fallacy and the Classical Open-Question Argument

2.3    Three Objections to the Classical Open-Question Argument

Frankena’s objection

The ‘no interesting analyses’ objection

The ‘sense-reference’ objection

2.4    Can the Open-Question Argument Be Salvaged?

Baldwin’s ‘open-question’ argument

Darwall, Gibbard and Railton’s ‘open-question’ argument

2.5    Further Reading

  3  Emotivism and the Rejection of Non-Naturalism

3.1    Introduction to Ayer’s Emotivism

3.2    Ayer’s Argument Against Non-Naturalism

3.3    Some Better Objections to Non-Naturalism

The a priori supervenience of the moral on the natural

The role of ‘perception’ in moral deliberation

Non-naturalism and moral motivation

Epistemological bankruptcy

3.4    Clarificatory Comments on Emotivism

Metaphysical and epistemological solvency

Emotivism and subjectivism

Emotivism and the ‘speech-act’ fallacy

3.5    Problems for Emotivism

The implied error problem

The Frege-Geach problem

The problem of the schizoid attitude

The problem of mind-dependence

3.6    The Moral Attitude Problem and the Open-Question Argument Revisited

The implicit elimination of moral judgement

Emotivism and the open-question argument

3.7    Further Reading

  4  Blackburn’s Quasi-Realism

4.1    Introduction

4.2    Blackburn’s Arguments For Projectivism

Metaphysical and epistemological solvency

Supervenience and the ban on mixed worlds

Moral judgement and motivation

4.3    Blackburn’s Response to the Frege-Geach Problem

4.4    The Central Objection to Blackburn’s Solution to the Frege-Geach Problem

4.5    Commitment-Theoretic Semantics and the Frege-Geach Problem

4.6    How Compelling is the Central Objection?

Situation 1

Situation 2

Situation 3

Situation 4

4.7    Blackburn’s Response to the Problem of Mind-Dependence

Zangwill’s objection to Blackburn

4.8    Ambitious Quasi-Realism and the Construction of Moral Truth

4.9    McDowell on Projection and Truth in Ethics

4.10  Quasi-Realism and the Moral Attitude Problem

Emotional ascent

Stable sentiment

Higher-order sentiment

4.11  Further Reading

  5  Gibbard’s Norm-Expressivism

5.1    Norm-Expressivism Introduced

5.2    The Frege-Geach Problem Revisited

5.3    Gibbard’s Solution to the Frege-Geach Problem

5.4    Comments and Objections

Blackburn’s objections

Ambiguity and logical operators

Mind-independence

Gibbard and the moral attitude problem

Norm-expressivism and the normativity of norms

Commitments and plans

5.5    Further Reading

  6  Mackie’s ‘Error-Theory’, the Argument from Queerness and Moral Fictionalism

6.1    Introduction

6.2    Error-Theories, Cognitivism and the Rejection of Moral Realism

6.3    An Example of an Error-Theory: Locke on Colour

6.4    Mackie’s Conceptual Claim

6.5    The Argument from Queerness

6.6    Wright’s Objection to the Error-Theory

6.7    Joyce’s Revolutionary Moral Fictionalism

6.8    Responding to the Argument from Queerness

6.9    Dispositionalism as a Response to the Error-Theory about Colour

6.10  Appendix: Kalderon’s Hermeneutic Moral Fictionalism

6.11  Further Reading

  7  Judgement-Dependent Accounts of Moral Qualities

7.1    Introduction

7.2    Judgement-Dependence and Judgement-Independence

7.3    Colours are Judgement-Dependent

7.4    Shapes are Not Judgement-Dependent

7.5    Moral Qualities are not Judgement-Dependent

7.6    Judgement-Dependence and Categoricity

7.7    Further Reading

  8  Naturalism I – Cornell Realism

8.1    Introduction

8.2    Harman’s Challenge

Cornell Realism

Harman

8.3    Sturgeon’s Reply to Harman

Reductionism and non-reductionism

Sturgeon’s examples of explanatorily efficacious moral facts

Where Harman goes wrong

8.4    More on Harman and Sturgeon

8.5    Program Explanation

8.6    Vindicatory Explanation

8.7    Copp on Explanation and Justification in Ethics

8.8    Moral Twin-Earth and the Revived Open-QuestionArgument

8.9    Moral Program Explanation Evaluated

8.10  Vindicatory Explanation Evaluated

8.11  Further Reading

  9  Naturalism II – Reductionism

9.1    Methodological Naturalism and Substantive Naturalism

9.2    Hegemonic and Non-Hegemonic Naturalism

9.3    Varieties of Revisionism

9.4    Tolerable Revisionism and Vindicative Reductionism

9.5    Railton’s Realist Account of Non-Moral Value

9.6    Railton’s Account of Moral Rightness

Generality

Humanization

Patterns of variation

9.7    Wiggins on Substantive Naturalism

9.8    Problems for the Full-Information Analysis of Non-Moral Value

Problem (a)

Problem (b)

Problem (c)

Problem (d)

Response to Problem (a)

Response to Problem (b)

Response to Problem (c)

Response to Problem (d)

9.9    Internalism and Externalism in Moral Psychology

9.10  Rationalism and Anti-Rationalism

9.11  Analytic Moral Functionalism and Smith’s ‘Permutation Problem’

9.12  A Reply to the Permutation Problem

After Indow and Ohsumi, 1972

9.13  Conclusion

9.14  Further Reading

10  Contemporary Non-Naturalism – McDowell’s Moral Realism

10.1 ‘Disentangling’ and the Argument Against Non-Cognitivism

10.2 Second Nature

10.3 Secondary Qualities, Cognitive Access and Working from Within

10.4 Humean and Anti-Humean Theories of Motivation

10.5 Scientism, Curiosity and the ‘Metaphysical Understanding’

10.6  Further Reading

Appendix: Sense, Reference, Semantic Value and Truth-Conditions

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Preface to the First Edition (2003)

This book is intended to provide a critical overview of some main themes and issues in contemporary metaethics. I set the scene with discussions of Moore and Ayer, and follow up with discussions of more recent figures: Blackburn, Gibbard, Mackie, Wright, Harman, Sturgeon, Railton, Wiggins, Jackson, Pettit, Smith and McDowell. It will be apparent to anyone with a knowledge of the rich scene presented by contemporary metaethics that many important figures and issues do not get discussed in the book. In a work of this length and scope that could not be helped. In addition, it seemed to me that a substantial discussion of some main facets of the territory would be more interesting, and ultimately more helpful, than a superficial tour of a much larger area. And where possible I have tried to make small contributions to the ongoing debates, which I hope will be of interest to the professional as well as the student.

I had the idea for this book shortly after completing my PhD dissertation at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1995. In that dissertation I attempted to defend what I took to be McDowell’s take on Wittgenstein’s ‘rule-following considerations’. Initially, my plan was to start with Moore, then get clear on the inadequacies of his non-naturalist position before showing that both naturalistic cognitivism and non-cognitivism are likewise implausible. Courtesy of the rule-following arguments, McDowell would emerge at the end of the book as a defender of a form of non-naturalism not prone to the difficulties of Moore’s position or of its naturalistic competitors. In fact, the book has turned out to be the opposite of this. I still begin by arguing that Moore’s non-naturalism is inadequate, but then I try to show that many of the objections against naturalistic cognitivism (especially reductionist versions) and non-cognitivism (especially Blackburn’s quasi-realism) are at least less compelling than they initially seem. In particular, I argue that the ‘rule-following’ arguments and their like do nothing to undermine Railton’s naturalistic cognitivism or Blackburn’s quasi-realism, nor do they save McDowell from the charge that his non-naturalism is ultimately no more plausible than Moore’s.

Versions of parts of the book have been read at seminars at: Cambridge, Cardiff, Durham, Stirling, and Macquarie University in Sydney; and also at the 2001 graduate metaethics conference at Leeds and Martin Kusch’s 2002 workshop on meaning and normativity at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. The audiences at these events provided many helpful responses. I used early versions of the manuscript as the basis for lecture courses at Birmingham in 1996 and 1997, and at Cardiff in 2001. I would like to thank the students in those classes for their useful feedback. For comments on parts of the manuscript I am grateful to John Divers, Mark Nelson, Penelope Mackie, Chris Norris, Robin Attfield, Duncan McFarland and Bob Hale. For detailed comments on the entire manuscript I am very grateful to Phillip Stratton-Lake and two other (anonymous) readers for Polity Press, and also to Andrew Fisher and Simon Kirchin. Needless to say, I have not been able to deal with all of these comments in the final version, and I am alone responsible for any errors that remain. I have found Michael Smith’s The Moral Problem wonderfully helpful; I am grateful to Michael for his patience with my attempts to criticize some of his arguments. The bulk of the book was written during my tenure as senior research fellow at Cardiff University. I am grateful to the university for its support, and in particular to David Skilton of the School of English, Communication and Philosophy for being an ideal head of school. I also thank my colleagues in the Philosophy section at Cardiff for providing me with such a stimulating and friendly environment in which to work: Andrew Belsey, Robin Attfield, Chris Norris, Alessandra Tanesini, Alison Venables, Christine Southwell, Barry Wilkins, Peter Sedgwick and Andrew Edgar. That such an excellent department could be so undervalued is a sign of more than mere degeneracy on the part of the British philosophical establishment. For help and encouragement that extend beyond the covers of this volume, I am indebted to Crispin Wright, Philip Pettit, Bob Kirk, John Divers, Alan Weir and Brian Leiter. Finally, and most of all, I am grateful to Jean and Rosa for providing me with the perfect escape route from the thorny paths of contemporary metaethics.

Preface to the Second Edition (2013)

For this second edition I have added new sections on Richard Joyce’s ‘revolutionary moral fictionalism’ and Mark Kalderon’s ‘hermeneutic moral fictionalism’. I have also revised each chapter, in the process hopefully improving on the first (2003) edition. The guides to further reading at the end of each chapter have been updated, and can be read in conjunction with my entry in Oxford Bibliographies Online. Such is the vibrancy of the current metaethical scene, there have been many interesting recent developments that I’ve simply had no space to discuss – for example, ‘hybrid’ or ‘ecumenical’ theories of moral judgement, Mark Schroeder’s work on the Frege-Geach problem, the ‘cognitivist expressivism’ of Horgan and Timmons, the moral realism of Russ Shafer-Landau. I’m hoping to take these up in a sequel to the current book, An Introduction to Advanced Metaethics.

Since the first edition, I’ve given talks on metaethical themes at a number of departments and conferences, including: ANU, Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar, the 2006 Ethical Naturalism conference at Durham, Turku, Szczecin, Nottingham, Seoul National University, the 2011 Nottingham Ethics and Explanation conference, and the University of Otago. I’m grateful to audiences at these events for helpful feedback, and also to the students in my classes at Macquarie and Birmingham. I’m also very grateful to the reviewers who commented on the whole manuscript for Polity Press, and especially to Simon Kirchin for extremely helpful comments and advice. Thanks, too, to postgraduate supervisees working on metaethical themes: Andrew Field, Callum Hood, and the inimitable Kirk Surgener. I’m very grateful to Helen Gray for her invaluable copy-editing.

I would like to thank John Haldane for some helpful guidance when I was planning the original version, and special thanks are due to Allan Anderson, Janet Elwell, Martin Kusch, Brian Leiter, Philip Pettit, Mark Walker and Crispin Wright. As with the first edition, thanks most of all to Jean Cockram and Rosa Heloise Miller.

Later on I asked Marlow why he wished to cultivate this chance acquaintance. He confessed apologetically that it was the commonest curiosity. I flatter myself that I understand all sorts of curiosity – curiosity about daily facts, daily things, about daily men. It is the most respectable faculty of the human mind – in fact, I cannot conceive the uses of an incurious mind. It would be like a chamber perpetually locked up.

Joseph Conrad, Chance

1

Introduction

In this chapter, I provide a brief account of the territory covered in metaethics, and of the main philosophical positions in metaethics to be covered in detail in the course of the book.

1.1 What is Metaethics?

Suppose I am debating with a friend the question whether or not we ought to give to famine relief, whether or not we are morally obliged to give to famine relief. The sorts of questions philosophers raise about this kind of debate fall roughly into two groups. First, there are first-order questions about which party in the debate, if any, is right, and why. Then, there are second-order questions about what the parties in the debate are doing when they engage in it. Roughly, the first-order questions are the province of normative ethics, and the second-order questions are the province of metaethics. As one recent writer puts it:

In metaethics, we are concerned not with questions which are the province of normative ethics like ‘Should I give to famine relief?’ or ‘Should I return the wallet I found in the street?’ but with questions about questions like these. (Smith 1994a: 2)

It is important to be clear that in normative ethics we do not just look for an answer to the question ‘Should we give to famine relief?’; we also look for some insight into why the right answer is right. It is in their answers to this latter sort of ‘why?’ question that the classic theories in normative ethics disagree. Examples of such theories include: act-utilitarianism (one ought to give to famine relief because that particular action, of those possible, contributes most to the greater happiness of the greatest number), rule-utilitarianism (one ought to give to famine relief because giving to famine relief is prescribed by a rule the general observance of which contributes most to the greater happiness of the greatest number), and Kantianism (one ought to give to famine relief because universal refusal to give to famine relief would generate some kind of inconsistency). Normative ethics thus seeks to discover the general principles underlying moral practice, and in this way potentially impacts upon practical moral problems: different general principles may yield different verdicts in particular cases. In this book we are not concerned with questions or theories in normative ethics. Rather, we are concerned with questions about the following:1

(a)  Meaning: what is the semantic function of moral discourse? Is the function of moral discourse to state facts, or does it have some other non-fact-stating role?

(b)  Metaphysics: do moral facts (or properties) exist? If so, what are they like? Are they identical or reducible to natural facts (or properties) or are they irreducible and sui generis?

(c)  Epistemology and justification: is there such a thing as moral knowledge? How can we know whether our moral judgements are true or false? How can we ever justify our claims to moral knowledge?

(d)  Phenomenology: how are moral qualities represented in the experience of an agent making a moral judgement? Do they appear to be ‘out there’ in the world?

(e)  Moral psychology: what can we say about the motivational state of someone making a moral judgement? What sort of connection is there between making a moral judgement and being motivated to act as that judgement prescribes?

(f)  Objectivity: can moral judgements really be correct or incorrect? Can we work towards finding out the moral truth?

Obviously, this list is not intended to be exhaustive, and the various questions are not all independent (for example, a positive answer to (f) looks, on the face of it, to presuppose that the function of moral discourse is to state facts). But it is worth noting that the list is much wider than many philosophers forty or fifty years ago would have thought. For example, one such philosopher writes:

[Metaethics] is not about what people ought to do. It is about what they are doing when they talk about what they ought to do. (Hudson 1970: 1)

The idea that metaethics is exclusively about language was no doubt due to the once prevalent idea that philosophy as a whole has no function other than the study of ordinary language and that ‘philosophical problems’ only arise from the application of words out of the contexts in which they are ordinarily used. Fortunately, this ‘ordinary language’ conception of philosophy has long since ceased to hold sway, and the list of metaethical concerns – in metaphysics, epistemology, phenomenology, moral psychology, as well as in semantics and the theory of meaning – bears this out.

Positions in metaethics can be defined in terms of the answers they give to these sorts of question. Some examples of metaethical theories are: moral realism, non-cognitivism, error-theory, and moral anti-realism. The task of this book is to explain and evaluate these theories. In this chapter I give thumbnail sketches of the various theories and try to convey an idea of the sorts of questions they address. These preliminary sketches are then developed at more length in the remainder of the book.

1.2 Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism

Consider a particular moral judgement, such as the judgement that murder is wrong. What sort of psychological state does this express? Some philosophers, called cognitivists, think that a moral judgement like this expresses a belief. Beliefs can be true or false: they are truth-apt, or apt to be assessed in terms of truth and falsity. So cognitivists think that moral judgements are capable of being true or false. On the other hand, non-cognitivists think that moral judgements express non-cognitive states like emotions or desires.2 Desires and emotions are not truth-apt. So moral judgements are not capable of being true or false. (Note that although it may be true that I have a desire for a pint of beer and false that I have a desire to see England win the World Cup, this does not imply that desires themselves can be true or false.) In many ways, it is the battle between cognitivism and non-cognitivism that takes centre-stage in this book: chapters 3–5 concern non-cognitivism and its problems, while cognitivism and its problems are the topic of chapter 2 and chapters 6–10.

1.3 Strong Cognitivism: Naturalism

A strong cognitivist theory is one which holds that moral judgements (a) are apt for evaluation in terms of truth and falsity, and (b) can be the upshot of cognitively accessing the facts which render them true. Strong cognitivist theories can be either naturalist or non-naturalist. According to a naturalist, a moral judgement is rendered true or false by a natural state of affairs, and it is this natural state of affairs to which a true moral judgement affords us access. But what is a natural state of affairs? In this book I will follow G. E. Moore’s characterization:

By nature then I do mean and have meant that which is the subject matter of the natural sciences, and also of psychology. (Moore 1903: 92)

A natural property is a property which figures in one of the natural sciences or in psychology: examples might include the property of being conducive to the greatest happiness of the greatest number and the property of being conducive to the preservation of the human species. A natural state of affairs is simply a state of affairs that consists in the instantiation of a natural property.

Naturalist cognitivists hold that moral properties are identical to (or reducible to) natural properties. The Cornell Realists (e.g., Nicholas Sturgeon, Richard Boyd and David Brink: see Sturgeon 1988; Boyd 1988; and Brink 1989) think that moral properties are irreducible natural properties in their own right. Naturalist reductionists (e.g., Richard Brandt, Peter Railton: see Brandt 1979; Railton 1986a, b) think that moral properties are reducible to the sorts of natural properties that are the subject matter of the natural sciences and psychology. Both the Cornell Realists and the naturalist reductionists are moral realists: they think that there really are moral facts and moral properties, and that the existence of these moral facts and instantiation of these moral properties is constitutively independent of human opinion. The non-reductive naturalism of the Cornell Realists is discussed in chapter 8 and naturalist reductionism is the subject of chapter 9.

1.4 Strong Cognitivism: Non-Naturalism

Non-naturalists think that moral properties are not identical to or reducible to natural properties. They are irreducible and sui generis. We will look at two types of strong cognitivist non-naturalism: Moore’s ethical non-naturalism, as developed in his Principia Ethica (first published in 1903), according to which the property of moral goodness is non-natural, simple, and unanalysable; and the contemporary version of non-naturalism that has been developed by John McDowell and David Wiggins (roughly from the 1970s to the present day: see McDowell 1998; Wiggins 1987). Again, both types of non-naturalist are moral realists: they think that there really are moral facts and moral properties, and that the existence of these moral facts and instantiation of these moral properties is constitutively independent of human opinion.3 Moore’s non-naturalism, and his attack on naturalism, are discussed in chapters 2 and 3; the non-naturalism of McDowell is discussed in chapter 10.

1.5 Strong Cognitivism without Moral Realism: Mackie’s Error-Theory

John Mackie has argued that although moral judgements are apt to be true or false, and that moral judgements, if true, would afford us cognitive access to moral facts, moral judgements are in fact always false (Mackie 1973). This is because there simply are no moral facts or properties in the world of the sort required to render our moral judgements true: we have no plausible epistemological account of how we could access such facts and properties, and, moreover, such properties and facts would be metaphysically queer, unlike anything else in the universe as we know it. A moral property would have to be such that the mere apprehension of it by a moral agent would be sufficient to motivate that agent to act. Mackie finds this idea utterly problematic. He concludes that there are no moral properties or moral facts, so that (positive, atomic) moral judgements are uniformly false: our moral thinking involves us in a radical error. Because Mackie denies that there are moral facts or properties, he is not a moral realist, but a moral anti-realist. Mackie’s error-theory is the subject of chapter 6. In that chapter, we also look at some related fictionalist accounts of moral judgement (Joyce 2001; Kalderon 2005a).

1.6 Weak Cognitivism about Morals without Moral Realism: Response-Dependence Theories

A weak cognitivist theory is one which holds that moral judgements (a) are apt for evaluation in terms of truth and falsity, but (b) cannot be the upshot of cognitive access to moral properties and states of affairs. Weak cognitivism thus agrees with strong cognitivism in virtue of (a), but disagrees in virtue of (b). An example of a weak cognitivist theory would be a ‘response-dependence’ view which held that our best judgements about morals determine the extensions of moral predicates, rather than based upon some faculty which tracks, detects or cognitively accesses facts about the instantiation of moral properties. (The extension of a predicate is the class of things, events, or objects, to which that predicate may correctly be applied.) Moral judgements are thus capable of being true or false, even though they are not based on a faculty with a tracking, accessing or detecting role, in other words, even though true moral judgements are not the upshot of cognitive access to moral states of affairs. This view thus rejects moral realism, not by denying the existence of moral facts (like the error-theory), but by denying that those facts are constitutively independent of human opinion. In chapter 7, I will discuss weak cognitivist theories of this type in the context of Crispin Wright’s work on anti-realism (e.g., Wright 1988a).

1.7 Non-Cognitivism

Non-cognitivists deny that moral judgements are even apt to be true or false. Non-cognitivists thus disagree with both weak and strong cognitivism. We shall look at a number of arguments which the non-cognitivist uses against cognitivism. An example of such an argument is the argument from moral psychology:

Suppose that moral judgements can express beliefs, as the cognitivist claims. Being motivated to do something or to pursue a course of action is always a matter of having a belief and a desire. For example, I am motivated to reach for the fridge because I believe that it contains beer and I have a desire for a beer. But it is an internal and necessary fact about an agent that if she sincerely judges that X is morally right, she is motivated to pursue the course of action X. So if a moral judgement expressed a belief, it would have to be a belief which sustained an internal and necessary connection to a desire: it would have to be a necessary truth that an agent who possessed the belief would inter alia possess the desire. But no belief is necessarily connected to a desire because, as Hume claimed, ‘beliefs and desires are distinct existences’, and it is impossible to have a necessary connection between distinct existences (Hume 1739). So it cannot be the case that moral judgements express beliefs. So moral judgements are not truth-apt.4

If moral judgements cannot express beliefs, what do they express? We shall look at three versions of non-cognitivism which give different answers to this question: A. J. Ayer’s emotivism (1936), according to which moral judgements express emotions, or sentiments of approval or disapproval; Simon Blackburn’s quasi-realism (1984), according to which moral judgements express our dispositions to form sentiments of approval or disapproval; and Allan Gibbard’s norm-expressivism (1990, 2003), according to which our moral judgements express our acceptance of norms.

Perhaps the main challenge to non-cognitivism is what is called the Frege–Geach problem. According to emotivism, for example, judging that murder is wrong is really just like shouting ‘Boo for murder!’ (When I shout ‘Boo!’ I am evincing my disapproval; I am not attempting to describe something.) But what about ‘If murder is wrong, then it is wrong to murder your mother-in-law’? This makes sense. But on the emotivist interpretation it doesn’t (what would it sound like on an emotivist interpretation?). We shall look at how quasi-realism and norm-expressivism try to solve this problem for non-cognitivism, as well as a range of other problems that threaten the non-cognitivist. Non-cognitivism is the subject of chapters 3, 4 and 5.

1.8 Internalism and Externalism, Humeanism and Anti-Humeanism

One of the premises in the argument from moral psychology above is the claim that there is an internal and necessary connection between sincerely making a moral judgement and being motivated to act in the manner prescribed by that judgement. This claim is known as internalism: because it says that there is an internal or conceptual connection between moral judgement and motivation. Some cognitivist philosophers (e.g., Railton, Brink) respond to the argument from moral psychology by denying internalism. They claim that the connection between judgement and motivation is only external and contingent. Such philosophers are known as externalists. Other cognitivist philosophers (e.g., McDowell, Wiggins) respond to the argument from moral psychology by denying another premise of the argument, the claim that motivation always involves the presence of both beliefs and desires (this premise is known as the Humean Theory of Motivation, since it received a classic exposition by Hume). McDowell and Wiggins advance an Anti-Humean Theory of Motivation, according to which beliefs themselves can be intrinsically motivating. The debates between internalism and externalism, and Humeanism and Anti-Humeanism, are the subject of 9.9–9.10 and 10.4.

1.9 Further Reading

The following surveys of recent and contemporary metaethics may be found useful: Sayre-McCord (1986); Darwall, Gibbard and Railton (1992); Little (1994a, 1994b); Railton (1996a). A nice book that may ease readers unfamiliar with metaethics into the present text is Fisher (2011). For those entirely new to philosophical ethics, Blackburn (2001) and Shafer-Landau (2003a) are excellent and concise introductions. Benn (1998) and Kirchin (2012) are also useful. Useful collections of essays on the metaethical topics covered in this book are Fisher and Kirchin (2006), and Shafer-Landau and Cuneo (2007).

1.10 Flowchart of Main Metaethical Theories5

2

Moore’s Attack on Ethical Naturalism

2.1 Moore’s Strong Cognitivism and Account of ‘Natural’

In chapter 1, I distinguished between two forms of strong cognitivism: naturalistic strong cognitivism and non-naturalistic strong cognitivism. We can view these theories as theories about the truth-conditions of moral statements. Naturalistic strong cognitivism holds that the truth-conditions of moral sentences are determined by facts about the instantiation of natural properties, while non-naturalistic strong cognitivism holds that the truth-conditions of moral sentences are determined by facts about the instantiation of non-natural properties. In Principia Ethica, Moore argues for a version of non-naturalistic strong cognitivism. His argument is mainly negative: he argues for non-naturalism by arguing against naturalism. He claims that all naturalistic theories of morals are flawed, because they commit a fallacy, which he labels ‘The naturalistic fallacy’.

Before outlining Moore’s argument against naturalism, two comments are in order.

Comment 1: Moore on ‘natural’

Moore’s understanding of ‘natural’ is as follows:

By ‘nature’, then, I do mean and have meant that which is the subject matter of the natural sciences and also of psychology. It may be said to include all that has existed, does exist, or will exist in time. (Moore 1993: 92)

This characterization has some obvious drawbacks. First, we require some account of what makes a particular science ‘natural’, an account which begs no questions against ethical naturalism. In addition, the implication in the passage is that psychology is not, in whatever sense Moore had in mind, a ‘natural’ science. So why characterize the subject matter of psychology as ‘natural’? This suggests that there is some deeper characterization of ‘nature’ such that the subject matters of both the ‘natural’ sciences and psychology count as part of it. So what is this more fundamental characterization? One commentator suggests the following: