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Constructivism, Expressivism and Ethical Knowledge

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09672559.2010.492119

1466-4542

Matthew Chrisman,

Philosophy and Theoretical Science

Abstract Abstract In the contemporary metaethical debate, expressivist (Blackburn, Gibbard) and constructivist (Korsgaard, Street) views can be viewed as inspired by irrealist ideas from Hume and Kant respectively. One realist response to these contemporary irrealist views is to argue that they are inconsistent with obvious surface‐level appearances of ordinary ethical thought and discourse, especially the fact that we talk and act as if there is ethical knowledge. In this paper, I explore some constructivist and expressivist options for responding to this objection. My conclusion is that, although both constructivists and expressivists can capture other surface‐level features of ethical thought and discourse, the possibility of ethical knowledge causes special problems for these versions of irrealism. I end with some comments about where I think irrealists should begin to look for a response to these special problems, which points, somewhat surprisingly, towards an alternative inferentialist form of irrealism about epistemic and ethical thought and discourse, which is inspired by Sellars. Keywords: meta‐ethicsethical knowledgeethical irrealismethical constructivismethical expressivisminferentialism Notes 1 Compare Price (2004 Price, Huw. 2004. "'Naturalism without Representationalism'". In Naturalism in Question, Edited by: Macarthur, David and de Caro, Mario. 71–88. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]: p. 73), who makes a distinction between 'object naturalism=' and 'subject naturalism'. 2 With expressivism, I have in mind the family of views represented by Ayer (1936 Ayer, A. J. 1936/1946. Language, Truth and Logic, London: Gollancz. [Google Scholar]/1946), Stevenson (1936), Blackburn (1993 Blackburn, Simon. 1993. Essays in Quasi‐Realism, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], 1998 Blackburn, Simon. 1998. Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]), Gibbard (1990 Gibbard, Allan. 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar], 2003 Gibbard, Allan. 2003. Thinking How to Live, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]), Timmons (1999 Timmons, Mark. 1999. Morality without Foundations: A Defense of Ethical Contextualism, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]), and Ridge (2006 Ridge, Michael. 2006. 'Ecumenical Expressivism: Finessing Frege'. Ethics, 116(2): 302–36. [Google Scholar]). With constructivism, the view has been less well worked out in the metaethical literature, but it owes inspiration to Rawls (1980 Rawls, John. 1980. 'Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory'. Journal of Philosophy, 77: 515–72. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and I mostly have in mind Korsgaard (2003 Korsgaard, Christine. 2003. 'Realism and Constructivism in Twentieth‐Century Moral Philosophy'. Journal of Philosophical Research, APA Centennial Supplement, : 99–122. [Google Scholar]) and Street (2008 Street, Sharon. 2008. "'Constructivism About Reasons'". In Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Edited by: Shafer‐Landau, Russ. Vol. 3, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]). There are realist versions of expressivism (Copp, 2001 Copp, David. 2001. 'Realist‐Expressivism: A Neglected Option for Moral Realism'. Social Philosophy and Policy, 18: 1–43. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and constructivism (Lynch, 2009 Lynch, Michael. 2009. Truth as One and Many, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: Ch. 8). These views fall outside the scope of my interest in this paper. 3 Both expressivists and constructivists will often claim to be able to capture the other sense in which there appears to be an 'internal' connection between ethics and action. I don't deny that this is possible; rather my aim here is to sketch the central motivation for the differing views. 4 This is mainly because of the pioneering work of Blackburn's (1984 Blackburn, Simon. 1984. Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]: Ch. 6 and 1993 Blackburn, Simon. 1993. Essays in Quasi‐Realism, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]) development of the quasi‐realist programme, which seeks to recapture for irrealists the sorts of semantically infused talk (for example of truth, fact, property, etc.) that tempt many to realism in various areas. For more elucidation and further citations, see n. 9 below. 5 Compare FitzPatrick, 2005 FitzPatrick, William. 2005. 'The Practical Turn in Ethical Theory: Korsgaard's Constructivism, Realism, and the Nature of Normativity'. Ethics, 115: 651–91. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] and Hussain and Shah, 2006 Hussain, Nadeem and Shah, Nishiten. 2006. "'Misunderstanding Metaethics: Korsgaard's Rejection of Realism'". In Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Edited by: Shafer‐Landau, Russs. Vol. 1, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], where a similar point is made. 6 This claim requires some qualification. For some kinds of luck are compatible with knowledge. For example, knowledge that a pelican just flew by the car may depend on being lucky enough to have looked out the window at the opportune moment. However, other kinds of luck are not compatible. I'm discussing those other kinds of luck here (without attempting to specify them precisely). See Pritchard, 2005 Pritchard, Duncan. 2005. Epistemic Luck, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: Chs 5–6 for discussion of permissible and impermissible forms of epistemic luck. 7 There's a promising footnote in Street's paper where she hints at a constructivist meta‐epistemology, but she doesn't develop the view there. It's something like this which I think a constructivist will need to overcome the realist argument from appearances. 8 For example, one of the views defended by Quine (1970 Quine, W.V. 1970. Philosophy of Logic, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice‐Hall. [Google Scholar]), Field (1986 Field, Hartry. 1986. "'The Deflationary Conception of Truth'". In Fact, Science and Morality, Edited by: MacDonald, G. and Wright, C. Oxford: Blackwell. [Google Scholar], 1994 Field, Hartry. 1994. 'Disquotational Truth and Factually Defective Discourse'. Philosophical Review, 103(3): 405–52. [Google Scholar]), Horwich (1990 Horwich, Paul. 1990. Truth, Oxford; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. [Google Scholar]), or Wright (1992 Wright, Crispin. 1992. Truth and Objectivity, Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 9 This strategy received its first explicit expression when Blackburn proposed the 'enterprise of quasi‐realism', which 'tries to earn, on the slender basis [of expressivist anti‐realism], the features of moral language … which might tempt people to realism' (1984 Blackburn, Simon. 1984. Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]: p. 171). It has been subsequently developed by inter alia Blackburn (1993 Blackburn, Simon. 1993. Essays in Quasi‐Realism, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]), Stoljar (1993 Stoljar, Daniel. 1993. 'Emotivism and Truth Conditions'. Philosophical Studies, 70: 81–101. [Google Scholar]), Horgan and Timmons (1993 Horgan, Terence and Timmons, Mark. 1993. 'Metaphysical Naturalism, Semantic Normativity, and Meta‐Semantic Irrealism'. Philosophical Issues, 4: 180–203. [Google Scholar], 2000 Horgan, Terence and Timmons, Mark. 2000. 'Nondescriptivist Cognitivism: Framework for a New Metaethic'. Philosophical Papers, 29: 121–53. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Timmons (1999 Timmons, Mark. 1999. Morality without Foundations: A Defense of Ethical Contextualism, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]), and Gibbard (2003 Gibbard, Allan. 2003. Thinking How to Live, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]). 10 Perhaps ordinary speakers are committed to the in‐principle resolvability of disagreements in ethical belief (Smith, 1994 Smith, Michael. 1994. The Moral Problem, Oxford: Blackwell. [Google Scholar]: pp. 5–6). However, I doubt that this is true. It's a different issue whether expressivism is consistent with a defensible theory of ethical disagreement. On this, Egan (2007 Egan, Andy. 2007. 'Quasi‐Realism and Fundamental Moral Error'. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 85: 205–19. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) poses a serious challenge to expressivism which is outside the scope of the present paper. 11 This is the basic strategy I pursued in my own previous defence of epistemic expressivism; see my 2007. 12 The sort suggested by Grice (1957 Grice, H. P. 1957. 'Meaning'. Philosophical Review, 66: 377–88. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and worked out in different ways by Schiffer (1972 Schiffer, Stephen. 1972. Meaning, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]) and Davis (2003 Davis, Wayne. 2003. Meaning, Expression and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]). 13 No participant to the metaethical debate denies that it is highly debatable whether expressivism about ethical claims can provide a semantics for ethical sentences that is even structurally adequate for the task of distinguishing the semantic values of ethical claims under simple logical operations and propositional attitude reports. Recently Schroeder (2008 Schroeder, Mark. 2008. Being For, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), picking up some strands from inter alia Unwin (1999 Unwin, Nicholas. 1999. 'Quasi‐Realism, Negation and the Frege–Geach Problem'. Philosophical Quarterly, 49: 337–62. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Dreier (2006 Dreier, James. 2006. "'Negation for Expressivists'". In Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Edited by: Shafer‐Landau, Russ. Vol. 1, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]), has persuasively argued that most extant versions of expressivism have inadequate explanations of the semantic function of negation and propositional attitude reports. 14 For more on involuntarism and why it's nevertheless compatible with normative epistemic claims, see my 2008a Chrisman, Matthew. 2008a. 'Ought to Believe'. Journal of Philosophy, 105: 346–70. [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. 15 See my 2008c Chrisman, Matthew. 2008c. "'Knowledge as True Belief One Ought to Have'". unpublished paper [Google Scholar] for an attempt at an account of propositional knowledge which is inspired by Sellars' slogan and aims to meet a number of desiderata stemming from current debates in epistemology. See my forthcoming for some more discussion of the relationship between epistemic expressivism and epistemic inferentialism. 16 This is the sort of semantic programme developed by Rosenberg (1974 Rosenberg, Jay F. 1974. Linguistic Representation, Dordrecht: Reidel. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and Brandom (1994 Brandom, Robert. 1994. Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]). 17 Compare Craig, 1990 Craig, Edward. 1990. Knowledge and the State of Nature: An Essay in Conceptual Synthesis, Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar], Williams, 1992 Williams, Michael. 1992. Unnatural Doubts, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar], and Rosenberg, 2002 Rosenberg, Jay F. 2002. Thinking About Knowing, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]: Chs 5–6). 18 This does raise the question of how to distinguish realism from irrealism in a given domain, if not in terms of truth, fact, belief, or knowledge. I address this question in my 2008b Chrisman, Matthew. 2008b. 'Expressivism, Inferentialism, and Saving the Debate'. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 77: 334–58. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]. 19 Compare Brandom, 2001 Brandom, Robert. 2001. Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]: Ch. 2 for the beginning of such a view. Things get more complicated when we consider ought‐claims attaching, in the first instance, not to actions but to states of things. 20 For helpful comments on previous versions of this material, I'm grateful to Michael Ridge, Ana Barandalla Ajona, the Epistemology @ Edinburgh research group, and the participants of the Constructivism and Normative Epistemology workshop organized by James Lenman at the University of Sheffield.