Moral Realism and Irrealism, Miscellaneous

The inquiry is an introduction to the question, what is goodness? In it, realist and anti-realist accounts are considered. In Part I, two kinds of anti-realism are considered, subjectivist and strict. Subjectivism is the belief that goodness is belief-, affect-, or convention-dependent. It is suggested that subjectivism is based on an equivocation, is circular or is difficult consistently to maintain. Strict anti-realism is the belief that there is and can be no such thing as goodness. Three strict anti-realists are considered: (...) A. J. Ayer, Charles L. Stevenson and R. M. Hare. It is suggested that strict anti-realism is a kind of nihilism and that it is inconsistent with any practice. Whether strict anti-realism is true, however, is not decided. ;In Part II, three realist accounts are considered, those of G. E. Moore, Aristotle and Plato's Socrates in the Republic. It is argued that Moore's analytic and anti-holist account is false. Aristotle's substance ontological account, i.e., his 'somehow holism', is shown to be more phenomenally adequate. The hypothetical realism of Plato's Socrates in the Republic is shown to locate the good in a hierarchical ontology. ;In the Conclusion, a 'Socratic-Aristotelian' account is considered and is seen to account for certain phenomena, to accord with usage and etymology and to avoid the 'naturalistic fallacy'. It is, however, seen to have its own difficulties the consideration of which requires an additional account. (shrink)

THE PURPOSE OF THIS ARTICLE IS NOT TO EXAMINE THE CONCEPT\nOF THE IDEAL OBSERVER AS TO ITS QUALIFICATIONS AS AN\nETHICAL THEORY, BUT TO EXPOSE THE IMPLICATIONS IT HAS FOR\nAN UNDERSTANDING OF THE ROLE OF RATIONALITY IN ETHICAL\nDISCOURSE. THE "IDEAL OBSERVER THEORY" IS REALLY NOT\nVALUE-FREE, ACCORDING TO THE AUTHOR. THE MEANING OF SUCH AN\nOBSERVER IS FULLY EXPLORED, IN TERMS OF BEING "IMPARTIAL,"\n"FULLY INFORMED," "IDEALLY RATIONAL," ETC., AND RATIONALITY\nIS FINALLY NOTED TO BE NOT A PERFECT UNIFORMITY OF\nATTITUDES AMONG IDEAL OBSERVERS BUT THE (...) FREEDOM AND\nWILLINGNESS TO ASK FOR REASONS, TO ARGUE. (STAFF). (shrink)

Cambridge professor Simon Blackburn is best known to the general public as the author of several books of popular philosophy such as  ink, Being Good andTruth: a Guide for the Perplexed. Academic philosophers also know him as the author of one of the most important books of contemporary moral philosophy, Ruling Passions, and as a former editor of the leading journal Mind.

Recently Michael Devitt [2006] has argued for how adopting a position he calls ‘worldmaking’ is dangerous to a realist position. He further suggests that response-dependence under the form ‘global response-dependence’ is aversion of ‘worldmaking’. The aim of this paper is to identify what this supposed danger may be if any and to suggest one possible direction argumentation may take to decide the supposed debate between realists and world makers.

This thesis investigates the distinction, or distinctions, between response-dependent and response-independent concepts or subject matters. I present and discuss the three most influential versions of the distinction: Crispin Wright’s, Mark Johnston’s, and Philip Pettit’s. I argue that the versions do not compete for a single job, but that they can supplement each other, and that a system of different distinctions is more useful than a single distinction. I distinguish two main paradigms of response-dependence: response-dependence of subject matter (Johnston and Wright), (...) and response-dependence of concepts only (Pettit). I develop Pettit’s ‘ethocentric’ story of concept acquisition into an account of concept evolution that suggests answers to a range of hard questions about language, reality, and the relation between them. I argue that while response-dependence theses of subject matter can be motivated in very different ways, the resulting theses are less different than they might seem. I suggest that the traditional ways of distinguishing response-dependent subject matters from response-independent ones – in terms of a priori biconditionals connecting facts of the disputed class with responses in subjects in favourable conditions, and fulfilling some further conditions such as non-triviality and sometimes necessity – may not be the best approach. I also discuss two general problems for response-dependence theses: the problem of ‘finkish’ counterexamples, and the problem of specifying the ‘favourable conditions’ a priori, yet in a non-trivial way. The discussion of response-dependence is informed by a framework based on the idea that some realism disputes can be viewed as location disputes: disputes over the correct location of the disputed properties among several levels of candidate properties. The approach taken in this work is a charitable one: I try to make sense of response-dependence. The conclusion is the correspondingly optimistic one that the idea(s) of response-dependence makes sense. (shrink)

We must admire the ambition of Prinz’s title question. But does he provide a convincing answer to it? Prinz’s own view of morality as “a byproduct – accidental or invented – of faculties that evolved for different purposes (1),” which appears to express a negative reply, does not receive much direct argument here. Rather, Prinz’s main aim is to try to show that the considerations he believes are typically presented by moral nativists are insufficient or inadequate to establish that morality (...) is innate. He discusses, individually, how much evidential weight the (alleged) existence of (1) universal moral norms, (2) universal moral domains, (3) fixed stages in moral development, and (4) precursors to morality among non-human animals lend to nativist claims, and, in addition, he argues that poverty-of-the-moral-stimulus arguments are as yet unconvincing. “[C]urrent evidence,” Prinz claims, “is consistent with the conclusion that children acquire moral competence through experience (22).” It is not my intention here to follow Prinz’s piecemeal criticisms of moral nativism. In their attacks on linguistic nativism (see, e.g., Cowie 1999) and now on moral nativism, empiricists typically deploy the.. (shrink)

Neither Johnston's nor Wright's account of response-dependence offers a complete picture of response-dependence, as they do not apply to all concepts that are intrinsically related to our mental responses. In order to (begin to) remedy this situation, a new conception of response-dependence is introduced that I call "acceptance-dependence". This account applies to concepts such as goal, constitutional, and money, the first two of which have mistakenly been taken to be response-dependent in another sense. Whereas on Johnston's and Wright's accounts response-dependent (...) concepts depend on counterfactual responses of individuals, acceptance-dependent concepts depend on the actual responses of groups of people. This implies that concepts of the latter kind are less objective than concepts of the former kind. (shrink)

This volume presents fourteen original essays which explore the philosophy of Simon Blackburn, and his lifetime pursuit of a distinctive projectivist and anti-realist research program. The essays document the range and influence of Blackburn's work and reveal, among other things, the resourcefulness of his brand of philosophical pragmatism.

The central claim of this dissertation is that the most plausible form of virtue theory will incorporate a number of features from an ideal observer theory, and vice versa. Virtue theorists in ethics and epistemology often characterize the virtues as those traits required for a good human life, and right action in terms of the behaviour of virtuous persons. I argue that while such positions are mistaken , a related form of ideal observer theory can capture the virtue theorists' insights. (...) The core of my dissertation lies in developing a unified metaethical/epistemological/aesthetic theory which grounds normative properties in the judgements of ideal observers. Thus, for example, an action is morally right if and only if a virtuous ideal observer would declare it to be so. These ideal observers are identified by their possession of characteristics considered ideal by a class of semi-ideal observers, who are in turn identified by their possession of traits considered ideal by psychologically healthy humans. ;Instead of appealing to human nature, we make direct appeal to our ideals---the factors which give human nature theories much of their initial plausibility. On the other hand, our ideals reflect our human needs, our way of life, etc. They are grounded in human nature and thus of interest to us, capturing a further insight from human nature theory. Like standard ideal observer theories we arrive at a metatheory which provides an attractive blend of cognitivism, while avoiding commitment to 'queer' normative facts in the world. But the ideal observers we appeal to are much more fully characterized than standard ideal observers---their characteristics are grounded in human ideals, thus providing a basis for the judgements of the ideal observers, and providing us with reason to abide by their judgements. I motivate and develop this procedure for deriving ideal observers, consider objections to the approach, and show how the theory improves upon traditional virtue and ideal observer theories. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to set out an argument for moral objectivity. A brief sketch of the considerations at issue should help make it possible to keep sight of the forest amid the profusion of trees.

The paper proposes and defends the following characterization of response dependent property: a property is response-dependent iff there is a response-dependence biconditional for a concept signifying it which holds in virtue of the nature of the property. Finding out whether a property is such is to a large extent a posteriori matter. Finally, colors are response dependent: they are essentially tied to issuing the relevant experiences, so that having those experiences does give access to their, dispositional, nature. Finally, some important (...) contrary views are critically discussed in the paper. (shrink)

Expressionism, holism, and deflationism are central concepts in Blackburn quasi-realistic metaethics. The paper deals with these in order to evaluate the general tenability of Blackburn’s version of non-cognitivism.

The original version of this paper was written for the PHIL 320 Worldviews course offered at the University of Michigan.

This paper examines Ideal Observer Theory and uses criticisms of it to lay the foundation for a revised theory first suggested by Jonathan Harrison called Ideal Moral Reaction Theory. Harrison’s Ideal Moral Reaction Theory stipulates that the being producing an ideal moral reaction be dispassionate. This paper argues for the opposite: an Ideal Moral Reaction must be performed by a passionate being because it provides motivation for action and places ethical decision-making within human grasp.