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Moral Relativism, Cognitivism and Defeasible Rules*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2009

Ernest Sosa
Ernest Sosa
Affiliation:
Philosophy, Brown University
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Extract

Naturalism rejects a sui generis and fundamental realm of the evaluative or normative. Thought and talk about the good and the right must hence be understood without appeal to any such evaluative or normative concepts or properties. In Sections I and II, we see noncognitivism step forward with its account of evaluative and normative language as fundamentally optative (that is, expressive of wishes or desires) or prescriptive. Prescriptivism falls afoul of several problems. Prominent among them below is the “problem of prima facie reasons”: the problem, namely that prescriptions do not properly capture the character of defeasibility of the prima facie, featured by nearly all our moral convictions. We find in Section II that, ironically, emotivism, with its emphasis on optative rather than prescriptive language, though historically more primitive, is yet better attuned to that crucial prima facie aspect of the normative and the evaluative. But even emotivism still faces serious difficulties that beset noncognitivism generally, such as the problem of embedding in subordinate clauses, and the problem of normative fallibility. That takes us up to Section III.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Winter 1994 , pp. 116 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1994

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References

1 Noncognitivism in ethics has taken two main forms: according to prescriptivism, “One ought to keep one's promises” is tantamount to “Let's all keep our promises!” or some such prescription; according to emotivism, it amounts rather to “Would that people kept their promises!” or the like.

2 “Conduct” here should be interpreted in the broadest possible way so that even believing something in certain circumstances can be viewed as a sort of “conduct.”

3 If seriously ill, one may have good prudential reasons for believing one will recover, while still lacking the hard evidence required for epistemic justification.

4 Thus, e.g., “Hurray!” does not embed grammatically in antecedents of conditionals: “If Hurray! then …”

5 Calling an attitude “valid” or “justified” would thus amount to endorsing the adoption of such an attitude in such circumstances, or the like.

6 See especially the writings of Hare, Richard, Blackburn, Simon, and Gibbard, Allan: e.g., Hare, , The language of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952)Google Scholar, and Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Blackburn, , Spreading the Word (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; and Gibbard, , Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).Google Scholar The problem was first raised by Geach, Peter in “Ascriptivism,” Philosophical Review, vol. 69 (1960), pp. 121–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and then in “Assertion,” Philosophical Review, vol. 74 (1965), pp. 449–65.Google Scholar See also Searle, John, Speech Acts (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 We shall return to this general issue below, when we consider whether relativism is in a better position to resolve it.

8 For “naturalism” as an approach to ethics, and a contrast with “autonomous ethics,” see Harman, Gilbert, “Is There a Single True Morality?” in Relativism: Interpretation and Confrontation, ed. Krausz, M. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), pp. 363–87.Google Scholar

9 Harman, Gilbert, “Moral Relativism Defended,” in Relativism, ed. Meiland, J. and Krausz, M. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. 195.Google Scholar

10 Williams, Bernard, Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (New York: Harper, 1972).Google Scholar

11 Foot, Philippa, “Moral Relativism,”Google Scholar in Meiland, and Krausz, , eds., Relativism, p. 162.Google Scholar

12 It might be replied that the peremptoriness of morality derives precisely from the fact that it is morality (and not any game). This will be considered some pages hence, in connection with position (F).

13 Foot, , “Moral Relativism,” p. 164.Google Scholar

14 Wong, David, “Commentary on Sayre-McCord's ‘Being a Realist about Relativism’,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 61 (1991), p. 182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 184.

16 I do not argue that there is no important truth captured by (M) (or something close: compare “what one ought morally to do” with “the thing to do”). I argue rather that there are important senses of “ought” and, especially, “ought morally” that are not captured by (M). Moreover, as Harman has pointed out to me in correspondence,

our morality itself allows nonmoral considerations to override moral considerations sometimes. If I promise someone to meet them at such and such a time and it then emerges that I will collect a large sum of money if I instead go to the lottery office, and I am unable to reach the party I have promised to meet, then morality says it is OK for me to inconvenience the other party, despite my promise, even though in this case we would not say that I ought morally to go to the lottery office. (We do say I am not morally wrong to do so.)

17 An alternative reply seems also in the end unpromising, but I will not be able to go into it much here: namely, to relativize to human societies and codes as they are throughout history in the actual world. (For one quick thing: there seem to be intrinsically and absolutely wrong actions not prohibited in every actual code.)

18 And an analogous problem arises with regard to the generalizations we believe in common sense and in many scientific disciplines-generalizations which seem to hold true only ceteris paribus.

19 A question I owe to Harman.