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PPE Notes Ethics Notes

Moral Realism Michael Smith Notes

Updated Moral Realism Michael Smith Notes

Ethics Notes

Ethics

Approximately 18 pages

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The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory

Chapter One: Moral Realism (Michael Smith)

Moral Realism vs. Nihilism vs. Expressivism

  • Moral realism:

    • moral claims are capable of being either true or false

    • some moral claims are true

  • Nihilism/Error Theory:

    • when we make moral claims we intend to say things capable of being true or false (Smith claims this is the same as moral realism’s first commitment, but surely it isn’t - it’s just a claim about intentions. if it is the same claim, then it doesn’t look like nihilism - no truth)

    • all moral claims are false, because rightness and wrongness are not features that acts possess

  • Expressivism

    • moral claims are not intended to be true or false - they are intended to express feelings about acts/people etc

    • because it isn’t presupposed that rightness and wrongness can be properties of acts, expressivism can claim that moral claims are neither true nor false

  • Nihilism sees a disparity between the way we talk and the way things are - we speak as if rightness and wrongness were features of acts, but they are not

    • hence it demands a reform of moral practice: when we know the claims are false, we should stop making them

  • Expressivism doesn’t require reform, because it claims moral practice doesn’t presuppose that falsity in the first place

  • Two questions:

    • are moral claims capable of being true or false?

      • if yes, then expressivism refuted

    • are any moral claims in fact true?

      • if yes, then nihilism refuted

An Initial Difficulty

  • When we say ‘torturing babies is wrong’ that seems to be equivalent to ‘“Torturing babies is wrong” is true’

    • does this prove realism? if so, then the mere fact that we have moral commitments would prove realism

      • maybe the problem is that we say these claims are true loosely speaking, not strictly speaking

Minimalism

  • The above rests on a minimalist (disquotational) theory of truth, whereby ‘s is true’ is equivalent to, means the same as, ‘s’

    • hence we have a position: Minimal Moral Realism claims that:

      • when we make a moral claim ‘s’, s is true strictly speaking, not loosely speaking

      • some of these moral claims are true

      • the meanings of ‘true’ and ‘false’ are explained by the minimalist theory

  • If we accept this account, nihilism and expressivism are eliminated by the mere fact that we have some moral commitments

The Main Problem with Minimalism

  • The problem is that minimalist doesn’t tell us anything about what conditions ‘s’ must satisfy for ‘“‘s” is true’ to be a meaningful sentence

    • it doesn’t tell us what it is about a sentence that is capable of truth/falsehood that makes it capable of truth and falsehood

    • e.g. ‘“Hooray for the Chicago Bulls!” is true’ isn’t a meaningful sentence

  • This problem can’t be solved by claiming it is syntactic features of sentences that mean they aren’t truth apt, because ‘“The toves are gyring and gimbling in the wardrobe” is true’ is syntactically equivalent to e.g. snow is white, but is not truth-apt, because meaningless

    • it seems that sentences are truth-apt in virtue of substantive facts e.g. patterns of usage that allow them to convey information

      • minimalism can’t capture such a substantive fact

Expressivism and Internalism

  • So for moral claims to be capable of being true or false, the words contained (e.g. ‘right’ and ‘wrong’) would have to be associated with patterns of usage that make it plain what information about the world people’s use of them is intended to convey

    • expressivism argues that we cannot give such an account

  • According to the internalism constraint, there is an internal relation (necessary connection) between our moral motivations and our moral motivations

    • e.g. if we don’t give to Oxfam, then we don’t think that giving to Oxfam is right (unless we are overcome by depression/weak will/mental illness)

    • this places a constraint on the proper use of moral sentences

  • Expressivists claim that internalism is true, which means that our moral claims cannot have content - no belief with content (e.g. London is north of Paris) can be made false by desires and aversions, which are separate

    • the reason that ‘Torturing babies is wrong’ is contradicted by someone torturing babies is because the former doesn’t give the contents of anyone’s beliefs - there are no such beliefs to express

      • this is true because beliefs are states that give information about the world

      • hence moral claims dimply express approval or disapproval

      • this also means that when we make the moral claim ‘“s” is true’ we are speaking loosely, not strictly

  • Expressivism’s challenge is this: how can the internalist constraint be consistent with moral claims conveying beliefs? If it can’t, then both realism and nihilism are false

Naturalistic Moral Realism

  • If we believe that there is some feature of torturing babies that makes it wrong, then we are constrained by the truth of naturalism - the view that the world is amenable to empirical study

    • (this assumes that features of act are exclusively natural - why shouldn’t some features be irreducibly social?)

    • if the only features that objects have are naturalistic ones, then the only possible form of moral realism must be naturalistic

  • Naturalistic Moral Realism - some moral claims are capable of being true/false, and some a really true in virtue of naturalistic features of the world

    • so, what is the naturalistic feature of torturing babies that makes it wrong?

    • and, what part of our use of moral worlds makes them apt to pick out natural features of acts?

      • moral features supervene on naturalistic features - if we have two acts that are identical in their natural features, they must be identical in their moral features (again, what about social features?)

        • the supervenience constraint: when we use words like ‘right’, we believe that the acts in question have some naturalistic feature that warrants the ascription

  • But why must...

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