1. Introduction
(a) Last week I discussed error theory, and we have also discussed IMR and ethical naturalism. This week, expressivism, which is also referred to as noncognitivism.
2. Summary so farŠ.
(b) Recall that:
(i) IMRealists say that there is ethical stuff in the world, and that it exists mind-independently.
(ii) Ethical naturalism is the claim that there are ethical properties, but these are not metaphysically sui generis. SK thinks that this means that ethical naturalists, to maintain a distinctive position, have to be reductionists. (Why distinctive? See week 16.) As part of this distinctive nature of their position, they will be IMRealists: the E = N equivalence relation will be fixed mind-independently, just as it is for water and H2O.
(iii) But there seems to be a problem with any form of IMR, namely, it posits queer properties. Does this mean we have to be error theorists then?Š
(c) No. There are other realist positions anyway, but they will have to wait until next week. Even on the Œnon-realist¹ side, one does not have to be an error theorist. Recall the problem they had about characterizing the ethical life so richly that one ends up with something that seems far from erroneous. Why not interpret ethical life, and specific judgements, in a different manner? Not as attempted but failing descriptions but asŠ...something else.
3. Noncognitivism
(d) For a long time during the 20th century (roughly, the 1930s to the 1970s), noncog held sway. Emotivism: A. J. Ayer and C. L. Stevenson (we express emotions)
Expressivism: Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard (ditto, but often Œattitudes¹: noncog element).
Prescriptivism: R. M. Hare. (Ethical judgements = issuing of commands.)
Difference between emotivism and expressivism: (i) Latter is more inclusive, can express many things. (ii) Modern attempts try to shoehorn in value, truth (of a sort) and so on.
(e) Expressivism was the next major development after Moorean nonnaturalism (error theory, by name, came along in the 1970s). Writers such as Ayer were convinced by Moore¹s argument against naturalism, but were perturbed by what they saw as Moore¹s commitment to Platonic-like ethical properties. Given this was the only realist position on offer at the time, people wanted to be non-realist in some fashion. So, they thought that ethical judgements were best interpreted as trying to do something other than state facts, that is try to state what the world is like.
(f) To understand this, consider how language functions. We ask questions, (ŒDo we ask questions?¹), we issue commands (ŒWrite your essays!¹), describe things (ŒSimon likes chocolate¹ and ŒI like chocolate¹) and express emotion and attitude (ŒWow! Chocolate!¹). The last two are the important ones. The Œsurface¹ grammar (as everyone, including most noncogs agree) is descriptive or fact-stating (ŒPol Pot was evil¹). But noncogs think that it has a different Œdepth grammar¹ (or true function), which is to express attitude (or issue commands, or some combination). In fact, strictly, noncogs are committed only to the idea that ethical judgements are (really) not just fact-stating, not that they think that ethical judgements are wholly attitude expressing, say. So ŒPol Pot was evil¹ is in fact used by people to express attitude (and should be better written, perhaps, as ŒPol Pot. Boo!¹). Example of painful picture-hanging.
Note 1: ŒWow! Chocolate!¹ has a different surface grammar to ŒSimon likes chocolate¹ and even ŒI like chocolate¹. (Noncogs claim that ŒWow! Chocolate!¹ and ŒI like chocolate¹ can, in some circumstances, have the same depth grammar.)
Note 2: Confusing this issue is the difference between what a speaker thinks they are doing when they speak, and what an audience thinks a speaker is doing. We¹re going to ignore this, as does much of metaethics. The aim is to fit together many intuitions (and arguments) to arrive at the best account. This philosophical method could open the way for a type of error theory, of course.
(g) To get some grip on what is going on, contrast expressivism with error theory. Error theorists agree with realists that ethical language is fact-stating. It is trying to describe (ŒThat action was good¹, ŒThat table is brown¹ have the same grammatical structure.) It is just that, according to error theorists, there cannot be such things as ethical properties, at least as they are normally conceived. But this leaves error theorists with the worry mentioned in (c). So, why not be an expressivist instead, avoid that problem, and try to avoid realism whilst trying to accommodate the idea that ethical judgements are doing what they are supposed to be doing.
(h) Expressivism? Nonocgnitivism? All this terminology. ŒExpressivism¹ since the idea is that one should philosophically interpret value judgements as expressions of attitude, of something noncognitive. For something to be a matter of cognition is for it to be knowable. Hence, it has to be amenable to mental states that can represent matters as being thus and so. But attitudes do no represent anything. So, noncognitivists say that value judgements are not representational mental states.
4. Three Motivations for Adopting Noncognitivism
(i) Why adopt it? Three motivations. First is suggestive (but key we¹ll return to it next week). Second I¹ll deal with quickly. Third I¹ll go into in more depth.
(j) 1st. Think back to last week. We were interested in what fixes the equivalence relation. Well, here we have an easy answer. Everything - institutions, actions, other people¹s attitudes - are natural or nonethical until we decide to value them and say that we like or dislike them. (Don¹t get to hung up on the word Œdecide¹. It doesn¹t have to be a conscious decision.) Expression of attitude is put at the heart of the theory. I will return to this next week. (Think again about the crit. of eth. nat in 4 (p) last week).
(k) 2nd. Many ethical disputes appear to be intractable. This gives a nice analysis: if everyone agrees on the nonethical facts of cases, yet still disagrees, then something else must be happening. Noncog - they are having different emotional reactions. Ties in nicely with distinction between factual and evaluative language (e.g. seeing sunsets as beautiful). (Ayer used to push this line.) Cognitivists of whatever sort will say that this begs the question concerning what a fact is.
There is a problem to explain here. Why, then, is the surface grammar of ethical judgements fact-stating? Are we trying to convince others (see Stevenson article for seminar).
(l) 3rd. Ethical motivation. (NOTE: This stuff will connect with the material in week 17, so remember to link this material here to that.) Summary of neo-Humean picture of moral (and other) psychology. (ŒNeo-Humean¹ since, although it clearly has links with what Hume says, there are exegetical disputes about whether Hume actually thought this, in the detail that modern analytical philosophers present it.) There is a split between:
Desires: pushy, nonrepresentational, motivating states; and
Beliefs: inert, representational states.
These states are understood to be independently intelligible and have independent existence. Both are needed for directed action, but desires are the Œsenior partner¹: desires push, beliefs help to channel the push. The example of chocolate again.
[Notes: (i) Desires, beliefs and motivation. (ii) Don¹t get too hung up on the word Œdesire¹.]
(m) Noncognitivism uses the set up in (l). When we make ethical judgements we often are motivated to act upon them. NOTE: It is not as if we end up, all the time, acting appropriately on our judgements. (Weakness of will, and all that.) The claim is just that there is some level of motivation, no matter how weak. So, ethical judgements can¹t only be beliefs, they can¹t only be representing states. There must be some desire-like element in there as well, some attitude, something noncognitive. And noncognitivism provides a nice explanation of this state of affairs, obviously.
5. Jackson and Pettit¹s Argument
(n) I will just introduce something mentioned in the recommended reading, as there is a question on it in the module booklet, but you may well not be discussing it in detail in the seminar.
(o) To understand the worry, recall the difference between expression of attitudes and reporting of them. Expressivists are committed to the former (and often the latter is given the label Œsubjectivism¹, which is a label that stands for a host of ideas, but anyway). The main idea is that expressivists have no persuasive story to tell about how ethical sentences express rather than report attitudes. J and P get to this through Lockean thoughts about how language works. In brief, expressivists claim that certain words and expressions are meaningful and intentionally used signs, and that such meaning comes about in part or whole through conventions. Yet, they wish to say that such expressions lack truth conditions. This is worrying, since we then have to agree on the conventions that surround certain words and expressions and in order to do this, argue J and P, we must be able to recognize the attitude in question in us and other people. (I.e. if you call something Œgood¹ I have to know what attitude it is that you are using.) In which case, it seems as if when we use ethical expressions we are reporting the attitudes that we have and that are commonly associated with such words. We aren¹t expressing them at all.
NOTE: There is a key argument against all forms of noncognitivism called the ŒFrege-Geach¹ argument. I haven¹t got time in this module to discuss it. If any of you wish to write about it, having read the relevant chapter in Miller, please see me. The basic idea is that if one interprets all ethical judgements as expressions of attitude, then simple arguments, which intuitively one would accept as valid, turn out not to go through. Ethical reasoning seems to be impossible. This complicates very quickly, with lots of logic, but is lots of fun.