Essay 2 Readings
PI3007 Spring 2012 Antti Kauppinen
Essay question: Discuss an argument for or against expressivism, response- dependence accounts, constructivism, or Aristotelian naturalism. (Give your own, descriptive title for your essay.)
As I did the last time, I list below some of the relevant arguments and suggest some readings. ‘Discuss’ means the same thing as before.
Expressivism
The most important contemporary monographs on expressivism are Simon
Blackburn’s Spreading the Word (1984) and Ruling Passions (1998); Allan Gibbard’s Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (1990) and Thinking How to Live (2003); and Mark Schroeder’s Being For (2008) and Non-Cognitivism in Ethics (2010). (Schroeder is not an expressivist.)
The main arguments for expressivism are probably The Argument from Moral
Internalism (for materials, see the instructions for the last essay), The Argument from Explaining Supervenience
The main arguments against expressivism are criticisms of moral internalism (which aim to undermine support for the thesis that moral judgments are non-cognitive) (see the recommended readings for Essay 1), claims that expressivism collapses into subjectivism, claims that expressivism can’t account for objectivity, and most
prominently, the Frege-Geach argument claiming that the meaning of complex moral sentences can’t be explained as a function of attitudes expressed by simple sentences.
There are further questions concerning, for example, the individuation of moral attitudes (the Moral Attitude Problem), and whether expressivism licenses wishful thinking (see Cian Dorr (2002). Non-Cognitivism and Wishful Thinking. Noûs 36 (1):97–103 and James Lenman (2003). Noncognitivism and Wishfulness. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (3):265-274.).
Expressivism Collapses Into Subjectivism
Frank Jackson & Philip Pettit (1998). A Problem for Expressivism . Analysis 58 (4):239–251.
Michael Smith & Daniel Stoljar (2003). Is There a Lockean Argument Against Expressivism ? Analysis 63 (1):76–86.
Frank Jackson & Philip Pettit (2003). Locke, Expressivism , Conditionals. Analysis 63 (1):86–92.
James Dreier (2004). Lockean and Logical Truth Conditions. Analysis 64 (1):84–91.
(these four papers form a nice, self-contained debate)
Jussi Suikkanen (2009). The Subjectivist Consequences of Expressivism . Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90 (3):364-387.
Mark Schroeder, Does Expressivism Have Subjectivist Consequences?
Jonas Olson (2010). The Freshman Objection to Expressivism and What to Make of It. Ratio 23 (1):87-101.
Expressivists Can’t Account for Objectivity:
Allan Gibbard (1985). Normative Objectivity. Noûs 19 (1):41-51.
Nick Zangwill (1994). Moral Mind-Independence. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (2):205 – 219.
Simon Blackburn (1999). Is Objective Moral Justification Possible on a Quasi-Realist Foundation? Inquiry 42 (2):213 – 227
Andy Egan (2007). Quasi-Realism and Fundamental Moral Error. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (2):205 – 219.
The Frege-Geach Problem (this is only a small sample of a vast literature):
P. T. Geach (1965). Assertion. Philosophical Review 74 (4):449-465. (why it’s called the ‘Frege-Geach problem’)
Simon Blackburn (1988). Attitudes and Contents. Ethics 98 (3):501-517.
Mark Van Roojen (1996). Expressivism and Irrationality. Philosophical Review 105 (3):311 - 335.
James Dreier (1999). Transforming Expressivism . Noûs 33 (4):558-572.
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (2000). Expressivism and Embedding. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (3):677-693.
Michael Ridge (2006). Ecumenical Expressivism : Finessing Frege. Ethics 116 (2):302-336. (a defense of hybrid expressivism)
Mark Schroeder (2009). Hybrid Expressivism : Virtues and Vices. Ethics 119 (2):257- 309. (a critique of hybrid expressivism)
Nicholas Unwin (1999). Quasi-Realism, Negation and the Frege-Geach Problem. Philosophical Quarterly 50 (196):337-352. (introduces the Negation Problem)
Mark Schroeder (2008). How Expressivists Can and Should Solve Their Problem with Negation. Noûs 42 (4):573 - 599. (the best response to the Negation Problem)
Ralph Wedgwood (2010). Schroeder on Expressivism : For – or Against? Analysis 70 (1):117-129.
Neil Sinclair (2011). Moral Expressivism and Sentential Negation. Philosophical Studies 152 (3):385-411
J. Skorupski (2012). The Frege-Geach Objection to Expressivism : Still Unanswered. Analysis 72 (1):9-18.
Response-Dependence Views
The standard distinction among views for which moral facts are dependent on human responses is between dispositionalist views and sensibility theories. A nice overview is provided by Justin D'Arms and Daniel Jacobson, Sensibility Theory and
Projectivism.
a) Dispositionalism
The most thoroughly developed theory of the dispositionalist type can be found in Jesse Prinz’s The Emotional Construction of Morals (2007). Classic papers, some relativist and some not, include the following:
David Lewis (1989). Dispositional Theories of Value. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 63:113-137.
Roderick Firth (1952). Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 12 (3):317-345.
Jesse J. Prinz (2006). The Emotional Basis of Moral Judgments. Philosophical Explorations 9 (1):29-43.
Jesse Prinz (2009). The Emotional Construction of Morals • by Jesse Prinz: Summary.
Analysis 69 (4).
Jason Kawall (2006). On the Moral Epistemology of Ideal Observer Theories. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (3):359 - 374.
b) Sensibility Theory
The best work on sensibility theory is by John McDowell (whose most important articles are collected in Mind, Value, and Reality), and David Wiggins (see the papers in Needs, Value, and Truth). The Shafer-Landau and Cuneo volume contains work from each.
Challenges to response-dependence accounts include the following:
The Euthyphro Dilemma
Crispin Wright, (1988). The Inaugural Address: Moral Values, Projection and Secondary Qualities. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 62:1 - 26.
Simon W. Blackburn (1993). Circles, Finks, Smells and Biconditionals. Philosophical Perspectives 7:259-279.
The Unmotivated Idealization Problem
David Enoch (2005). Why Idealize? Ethics 115 (4):759-787
Rachel Cohon (1997). The Common Point of View in Hume's Ethics. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (4):827-850.
The Missing Normativity Problem
Nick Zangwill (2003). Against Moral Response-Dependence. Erkenntnis 59 (3):285 - 290.
Jason Kawall (2004). Moral Response-Dependence, Ideal Observers, and the Motive of Duty: Responding to Zangwill. Erkenntnis 60 (3):357-369.
Richard Joyce, “Moral relativists gone wild: Review of Jesse Prinz’s The Emotional Construction of Morals , ” Mind 118 (2009).
The Conflation Problem
Justin D'Arms & Daniel Jacobson (2000). Sentiment and Value. Ethics 110 (4):722- 748.
Justin D'Arms (2005). Two Arguments for Sentimentalism. Philosophical Issues 15 (1):1–21.
Constructivism
On constructivist views, as I classify them, moral truths depend on what actual or rational agents would agree is right or wrong. A useful overview is provided by Carla Bagnoli, Constructivism in Metaethics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A more opinionated and argumentative one is Sharon Street (2010). What is Constructivism in Ethics and Metaethics? Philosophy Compass 5 (5):363-384.
Constructivism can be relativist or non-relativist. The best-known contemporary defender of relativist constructivism is Gilbert Harman (see Gilbert Harman (1975).
Moral Relativism Defended. Philosophical Review 84 (1):3-22; also in Shafer-Landau and Cuneo (eds.)) A kind of relativism is also involved in Sharon Street’s version of Humean constructivism: "Constructivism about Reasons," Oxford Studies in
Metaethics , vol. 3, ed. Russ Shafer-Landau (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2008) . See also James Lenman’s "Humean Constructivism in Moral Theory" in Oxford Studies in Metaethics 5, 2010, pp. 175-193.
Non-relativist constructivists tend to be Kantian (unsurprisingly, given the emphasis on what rational agents would agree on, or would will). Here are some of the best- known pieces (in addition to Korsgaard’s monographs The Sources of Normativity (1996) and Self-Constitution (2009).) A different version is defended by David Velleman (2009). How We Get Along (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
John Rawls (1980). Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory. Journal of Philosophy 77 (9):515-572.
Christine M. Korsgaard (1999). Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant.
Journal of Ethics 3 (1):1-29
Christine M. Korsgaard (2003). Realism and Constructivism in Twentieth-Century Moral Philosophy. Journal of Philosophical Research 28:99-122.
Here are some of the critical points that have been raised:
No Advantage Over Realism
William J. FitzPatrick (2005). The Practical Turn in Ethical Theory: Korsgaard's Constructivism, Realism, and the Nature of Normativity. Ethics 115 (4):651-691.
Nadeem Hussain and Nishi Shah (2006), Misunderstanding Metaethics : Korsgaard's Rejection of Realism Oxford Studies in Metaethics vol. 1.
The Shmagency Objection:
David Enoch (2006). Agency, Shmagency: Why Normativity Won't Come From What is Constitutive of Action. Philosophical Review 115 (2):169-198.
Luca Ferrero, Constitutivism and the Inescapability of Agency. Oxford Studies in Metaethics.
David Enoch (2011), Shmagency Revisited. New Waves in Metaethics. Ed. Michael Brady, Palgrave Macmillan.
Aristotelian Realism
The kind of Aristotelian realism I’m talking about says that moral facts are natural facts about the proper functioning of human beings. The best known proponent of this type of view is Philippa Foot (2001). Natural Goodness. Oxford University Press.
Among the critical discussions are the following:
James Lenman (2005), The Saucer of Mud, the Kudzu Vine and the Uxorious Cheetah: Against Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism in Metaethics.
Mark C. Murphy (2003). Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness:Natural Goodness.
Ethics 113 (2):410-414.
Alasdair MacIntyre (2002). Review: Virtues in Foot and Geach. Philosophical Quarterly 52 (209):621 - 631.
Scott Woodcock (2006). Philippa Foot's Virtue Ethics has an Achilles' Heel.
Dialogue 45 (3):445-468.
Joseph Millum (2006). Natural Goodness and Natural Evil. Ratio 19 (2):199–213.
