Miller (2003) An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics (1)

Miller, Alexander (2003). An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics. Malden, MA: Polity.

 

1. Normative Ethics and Metaethics

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)

When we raise the questions concerning moral debates such as whether or not we ought to give to famine relief, such questions fall roughly into two groups: on the one hand, there are first order questions about which party in the debate, if any, is right, and why, and these first order questions are the province of normative ethics. On the other hand, there are second order questions about what the parties in the debate are doing when they engage in it, and these second order questions are the province of metaethics.

In normative ethics, we 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(e.g. act-utilitarianism, rule-utilitarianism, and Kantianism) in normative ethics disagree. Normative ethics thus seeks to discover the general principles underlying moral practice, and in this way potentially impacts upon practical moral problems.

On the contrary, metaethics "is not about what people ought to do [and why]. 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 more general 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. However, the list of metaethical concerns has been renewed, as follows:

(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?

(1) Cognitivism: Its function is to state beliefs, and thus moral judgments are capable of being true or false (T or F).

(2) Non-Cognitivism: Its function is to state certain emotions or desires, and thus moral judgments are not capable of being true or false.

(b) Metaphysics: do moral facts (or properties) exist? If so, what are they like? Are they identical or reducible to some other type of fact (or property) or are they irreducible and sui generis?

(1) Naturalism
(1-1) The Cornell realist: moral properties are irreducible natural properties in their own right.
(1-2) Naturalist reductionists: moral properties are reducible to the other natural properties that are the subject matter of the natural sciences and psychology.

(2) Non-naturalism
moral properties are not identical to or reducible to natural properties. They are irreducible and sui generis. 

(c) Epistemology and justification: is there such a thing as moral knowledge? How can we know whether our moral judgments 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 judgment? 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 judgment? What sort of connection is there between making a moral judgment and being motivated to act as that judgment prescribes?

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

 

2. Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism

(1) Cognitivists think that a moral judgment such as 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 judgments are capable of being true or false.

(2) Non-cognitivists think that moral judgments express non-cognitive states such as emotions or desires. Desires and emotions are not truth-apt. So moral judgments 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.)

 

3. Strong Cognitivism 

A strong cognitivist theory is one which holds that moral judgements

(a) are apt for evaluation in terms of truth and falsity,
and
(b) canbe the upshot of cognitively accessing the facts which render them true.

 

Strong cognitivist theories can be either naturalist or non-naturalist.

(1)  Naturalism

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. A natural property is a property which figures in one of the natural sciences or in psychology. (e.g. 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.

(1-1) The Cornell realists (identical to natural properties)

Moral properties are irreducible natural properties in their own right. (e.g. Nicholas Sturgeon, Richard Boyd, and David Brink; see Sturgeon 1988; Boyd 1988; and Brink 1989)

(1-2) Naturalist reductionists (reducible to natural properties)

Moral properties are reducible to the other natural properties that are the subject matter of the natural science and psychology. (e.g. Richard Brandt and Peter Railton; see Brandt 1979 and Railton 1986a)

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.

 

(2) Non-Naturalism (irreducible and sui genris)

Non-naturalists think that moral properties are not identical to or reducible to natural properties. They are irreducible and sui generis.

(2-1) 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; 

(2-2) 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 and 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) 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 1977).

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.)

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.

 

4. Weak Cognitivism

(1) Weak Cognitivism about Morals without Moral Realism: 'Best Opinion' 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. 

Our best judgements about morals determine the extensions of moral predicates, rather than being 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.) 

도덕에 관한 우리의 최선의 판단은 도덕적 술어들의 외연을 결정하는 것이지, 도덕적 속성들의 예시화에 관한 사실들에 대해 추적하거나, 발견하거나, 인지적으로 접근하는 능력에 의존하는 것이 아니다.

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. 

 

5. 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.

[1] 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 (냉장고) 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 good, she is motivated to pursue the course of action X. (Internalism)

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] 1968).

C. So it cannot be the case that moral judgements express beliefs. So moral judgements are not truth-apt.

(1) A. J.Ayer's emotivism (1936), according to which moral judgements express emotions, or sentiments of approval or disapproval.

(2) Simon Blackburn's quasi-realism (1984), according to which moral judgements express our dispositions to form sentiments of approval or disapproval.

(3) Allan Gibbard's norm-expressivism (1990), according to which our moral judgements express our acceptance of norms. 

[2] The Frege - Geach problem

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?).

 

6. Internalism and Externalism, Humeanism and Anti-Humeanism 

(1) Internalism: The argument from moral psychology presented above presupposes internalism, i.e., 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. In other words, there is an internal or conceptual connection between moral judgement and motivation.

(2) Externalism: Railton and Brink respond to the argument from moral psychology by denying internalism. Externalist claim that the connection between judgement and motivation is only external and contingent.

(3) Humeanism: The argument from moral psychology presented above implies Humeanism(or, Humean theory of motivation), i.e., the claim that motivation always involves the presence of both beliefs and desires.

(4) Anti-Humeanism: McDowell and Wiggins advance an anti-Humean theory of motivation, according to which beliefs themselves can be intrinsically motivating.