The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics

Tristram McPherson, David Plunkett, Tristram McPherson, David Plunkett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138812208
• eBook ISBN: 9781351817912
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This Handbook surveys the contemporary state of the burgeoning field of metaethics. Forty-four chapters, all written exclusively for this volume, provide expert introductions to:

• the central research programs that frame metaethical discussions
• the central explanatory challenges, resources, and strategies that inform contemporary work in those research programs
• debates over the status of metaethics, and the appropriate methods to use in metaethical inquiry

This is essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in metaethics, from those coming to it for the first time to those actively pursuing research in the field.

I

Central Organizing Options in Metaethics

1

Non-Naturalistic Realism in Metaethics

David Enoch

Forget metaethics for a second. Think about the naïve realist about the outside world, say, or the naïve realist about abstract objects (a Platonist, perhaps). According to such naïve realists, when we talk and speak of objects in the outside world, or of abstract objects, what we attempt to do is to latch onto parts of reality that are out there, independent of us and our talking and thinking about them; and furthermore, in our better moments—when we succeed in thinking and talking in this way—what we think and say is straightforwardly true, as these objects and properties really are out there.

Now think of the average weight of the male, middle-aged analytic philosopher. Most of us are, I take it, naïve realists about it. We think that, for instance, the average weight of the male, middle-aged analytic philosopher is above 130 pounds. And we think that this is true independently of our thinking or talking about it. But we also think that there’s nothing ontologically exciting about the average weight of the male, middle-aged analytic philosopher. We don’t, for instance, feel a temptation to introduce this property into the so-called fabric of the universe. The reason is simple. While it’s true that the average weight of the male, middle-aged analytic philosopher is over 130 pounds, this is true entirely in virtue of some other things being true—namely, a bunch of facts about particular male, middle-aged analytic philosophers and their weight. Facts about average weight are reducible to, or grounded in, or consist in, or are constituted by, facts about particular people’s weight. Ontologically speaking, there seems to be nothing more involved in the former than the latter.

A good first pass at characterizing non-naturalist realism (sometimes called Platonism, or Robust Realism, or Moorean Realism) in metaethics is this, then: Like naïve realists elsewhere, the non-naturalist realist thinks of the relevant domain—in this case, moral thinking and talking—as entirely representational, attempting to capture a reality—now, moral reality—that is out there independently of our talking and thinking about it. Furthermore, the non-naturalist realist also thinks that in our better moments this attempt succeeds—that we do manage to think and utter straightforward truths about these normative facts and properties, as they do exist. On top of this, the non-naturalist realist thinks of moral facts, properties, and objects as ontologically exciting at least in the sense that they are unlike facts about the average weight of the male, middle-aged analytic philosopher: They are not reducible to or entirely grounded in other, non-moral facts, properties, and objects.

Now, philosophical isms are often hard to capture in a neat definition, and often enough it’s futile to even try. Coming up with a clean, uncontroversial characterization of naturalism, for instance, is impossible, and the same goes for realism. So we shouldn’t have higher hopes for a characterization of non-naturalist realism. Still, the above is a good start. And another good start would be to contrast, already at this early stage, non-naturalist realism with other metaethical views (rather crudely understood; many of these views are presented in much more detail elsewhere in this volume). Unlike non-­cognitivists or expressivists, non-naturalist realists think that moral or normative talk is fully representational, that it is fully and straightforwardly fact-stating and truth-­evaluable, that it expresses beliefs, that it attempts to describe the normative part of the universe. Unlike response-dependence theorists, non-naturalist realists believe that moral and normative facts are, well, independent of us and our responses. At least in this sense, non-naturalists defend morality’s objectivity (see Billy Dunaway’s chapter “Realism and Objectivity”). Furthermore, it’s not just our responses that are ruled out here—even if there is a God, according to non-naturalist realists the moral and normative facts do not constitutively depend on Her responses either; thus, non-naturalists reject Divine Command Theory as well. Unlike constructivists, non-naturalist realists believe that normative facts are not made true by our decision-making procedures, or by our endorsing them, or by anything about us and our perspectives; unlike naturalist realists, non-naturalist realists don’t think that normative and moral facts and properties are reducible to, or are entirely grounded in, or are nothing over and above, or can be given a real definition in terms of, run-of-the-mill natural facts (whatever exactly those are). Often this also means that non-naturalists think of moral facts as causally inert (for causal powers are arguably among the signs of the natural). And while error theorists are typically on the same page as non-naturalist realists in understanding the commitments of moral discourse and practice—they agree, for instance, that no “softer” interpretation of it, along naturalist or expressivist or constructivist lines, does it justice—still non-naturalist realists think, and error theorists reject, that, so to speak, the universe keeps its end of the deal: Non-naturalists believe that moral discourse, understood in this way, captures some non-trivial truths; error theorists differ.

In the rest of this contribution, I hope to accomplish the following: explain why there’s a sense in which such realism is the view to beat, as it were, even before doing serious metaethics (Section 1); explain why, still, so many people reject this view, and some, vehemently (Section 2); revisit the characterization of the view and raise some doubts about it (Section 3); and briefly sketch arguments for the view (Section 4).

OBVIOUSLY, THE DEFAULT POSITION

There’s a sense in which non-naturalist realism has to be the starting point: Other views enter the field, as it were, on the strength of some argument; non-naturalist realism is the default position, and arguments are needed to defeat it, not so much to establish it. How so?

The first thing to note is that moral (and more broadly, normative) language behaves very much like other representational language. Linguistically speaking, it is very hard to tell apart “Gender discrimination is common” and “Gender discrimination is wrong.” We are pre-theoretically just as happy to assert (or deny) one as the other; to negate them; to incorporate them in propositional attitude reports and related locutions (She’s not sure that gender discrimination is common; He agrees that gender discrimination is wrong; She believes both that gender discrimination is common, and that it’s wrong, but she believes the latter more confidently than the former); we’re happy to assign them truth values, to engage in (seemingly meaningful) disagreements about the wrongness of gender discrimination just as much as about its ubiquity; to speak of the property of wrongness (as I just did); and so on. Non-naturalist realists, then, can take language here at face value. True, they are not the only ones who can do this here—so can, perhaps, some naturalist realists, some constructivists, and also some error theorists (and perhaps others as well). Furthermore, it’s not clear how much weight we should give, at the end of the day, to taking language at face value. Perhaps, somewhat metaphorically, language sometimes deceives us (see, for instance, Dennett’s [1978: xix–xx] discussion of “fatigues”). Still, if we are to conclude that language does deceive us, we would need convincing. Going with face value seems to be the default. And non-naturalist realism (though not only non-naturalist realism) does that.

Another often-made point is that moral discourse seems to exhibit objective purport. We are (within some constraints) comfortable applying moral standards (for instance, via moral criticism) to many others, without first inquiring about their own moral inclinations, and we don’t withdraw once we find out that their moral commitments differ from ours (if we think that it’s wrong for an academic committee to apply stricter standards in promoting women than in promoting men, and we then find out that the committee members are actually committed to male academic supremacy, we don’t withdraw our criticism—in fact, we strengthen it). We seem to endorse—pre-theoretically—counterfactuals that do not sit well with response-dependence (if eating meat is morally wrong, then presumably it would have been wrong even had no one ever acknowledged its wrongness). And we treat moral disagreement as serious disagreement—if you think that (given current circumstances) our appointments committee should engage in affirmative action and I think that it should not, we seem to be contradicting each other, only one of us can be right, we will proceed to offer what looks like arguments and evidence supporting the relevant position, and so on. In all these ways, moral discourse at least purports to be objective in roughly the way usual empirical discourse is (other differences remain, of course), and clearly contrasts with discourses that are (presumably) paradigmatically non-objective, such as about tastiness, coolness, or yuckiness (see Enoch 2014 for some comparative discussion). Again, this will certainly not get us all the way to non-naturalist realism. And once again, perhaps at the end of the day, we are going to have to conclude (with some error theorists, perhaps) that the claim to objectivity is illusory. But if we are to go down that road, we will need convincing. The default position is with the objective purport of moral discourse.

How, by the way, are such references to the objective purport of moral discourse compatible with the just-as-common complaints about “sophomore relativism,” perhaps more an attitude to morality than a serious view, according to which, in some sense, when it comes to morality it’s all a matter of convention, or perhaps even of personal preferences? I think—and I think that this is what most metaethicists think—that the commitments that come along with objective purport represent the deeper, in some sense more authentic, commitments of even the sophomore who, under the corrupting effects of some post-modern rhetoric, thinks that she doesn’t accept morality’s objectivity. But perhaps more should be said here.

But of course, talk of the average weight of the male, middle-aged analytic philosopher also exhibits objective purport, and yet no one (presumably) is a non-naturalist about it. Objectivity of the relevant kind, in other words, seems entirely consistent with a naturalist reduction, or grounding, or some such. So it’s important to see that, even here, non-naturalist realism remains the default position. To see this, think of paradigmatically moral or normative facts and properties (if there are any, that is), and notice how different they are from paradigmatic natural ones. In the first group we have such things as the wrongness of humiliation; the value of dignity; the fact that it’s wrong to take pride in one’s social status; the fact that you have a reason to desire those things that are desirable; that you have a reason not to believe a contradiction; that it’s virtuous to overcome fear in the face of danger (in the right circumstances, for the right reasons, to the right extent). In the second group, we have things like electrons and quarks, tables and chairs, the ubiquity of gender discrimination, the average weight of the male middle-aged analytic philosopher, the fact that the glaciers are melting, the current exchange rate between US dollars and the New Israeli Shekel, and so on. When we consider these two groups of facts, properties, and objects, it becomes clear that the two are very different. The difference seems like a difference of kind. True, there are borderline cases (like, perhaps, the fact that the heart’s function is to pump blood, or that close relationships are healthy for humans). And perhaps, under the pressure of argument, we are going to have to accept that some of the members of the first group are really, at bottom, members of the second (or are reducible to them, or entirely grounded in them, or are constituted by them, or some such). But this is going to take the pressure of argument. Non-naturalism remains, in this way too, the view to beat.

This is sometimes obstructed by failing to distinguish between what we may call formal and full-blooded normativity (McPherson 2011; Enoch manuscript). Formal normativity is present whenever there are any relevant criteria of correctness at all. Set up a game—no one is allowed to step on the lines—and immediately some actions are correct (stepping between the lines) and some aren’t (stepping on the lines). And this suffices for some normative-sounding language (“No, you shouldn’t step on the lines!”, “Yeah, you’re okay, you didn’t step on any line,” and so on). This kind of normativity is very, very common—whenever people talk of any kind of rule or standard, whenever they engage in games or practices, or take part in institutions, there are some correctness conditions. And perhaps something similar is going on wi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction: The Nature and Explanatory Ambitions of Metaethics: Tristram McPherson and David Plunkett
• PART I: CENTRAL ORGANIZING OPTIONS IN METAETHICS
• PART II: CENTRAL PROBLEMS AND STRATEGIES IN METAETHICS
• PART III: THE STATUS AND METHODOLOGY OF METAETHICS
• Index