Handout #8
So far we've considered and rejected an explanatory argument for moral skepticism, according to which moral beliefs don't constitute knowledge because they are not formed in response to moral facts. Our response in a nutshell was: who says they aren't? and so what if they aren't? Now we consider a different argument for moral skepticism. Moral knowledge requires moral beliefs, and our moral attitudes turn out not really to be beliefs. First some background,.
Cognitivism and Non-cognitivism
Cognitivism is the (second order) view that moral sentences like `Abortion is wrong' have truth values, i.e. are either true or false. Equivalently, cognitivism is the view that sentences like `Abortion is wrong' may be used to report the content of a person's belief. For example: `George W. Bush believes that abortion is wrong'.
Non-cognitivism is the denial of cognitivism. Moral sentences like `Abortion is wrong' are not truth valued (cf. `Stop soft money contributions!'), and cannot be used to report the content of beliefs (cf. `John McCain believes that stop soft money contributions!').
One particularly version of non-cognitivism is emotivism: moral sentences like `abortion is wrong' are used merely to express moral approval or disapproval. `Abortion is wrong', according to emotivism, means something like `Boo to abortion!'.
A. J, Ayer, for instance, wrote in Language, Truth and Logic that if I say "`Stealing money is wrong', I produce a sentence which has no factual meaning--that is, expresses no proposition which can be either true or false. It is as if I had written `Stealing
money!!'--where the shape and thickness of the exclamation marks show, by a suitable convention, that a special sort of moral disapproval is the feeling which is being expressed. It is clear that there is nothing said here which can be true or false."
Non-cognitivists think moral sentences (I) lack truth-values, (II) fail to express facts, (III) are used not to assert anything but to condemn, celebrate, etc. (IV) are not believed but endorsed, in something like the way boos and cheers are endorsed. (95-7)
Humean Argument for Non-cognitivism (p. 98, 112-4)
Consider a moral claim -- for example, that abortion is wrong -- and two plausible sounding theses about it.
(1) The morality-is-motivating thesis: Finding abortion wrong, i.e. the mental state we usually call `believing that abortion is wrong', gives one some motivation -- perhaps slight, perhaps overridden by other motivations -- to act against abortion.
(2) Hume's thesis: Having a belief is never enough by itself to give one any motivation to act whatsoever.
(3) Finding abortion to be wrong is not the same as (here we speak strictly) believing that abortion is wrong.
So-called moral beliefs are really something else: so-called believing abortion is wrong is really deploring abortion, or rejecting abortion, or demanding that abortion not occur, or (the emotivist strain) saying Boo! to abortion and Hurrah! for avoiding it.
Famous problem for non-cognitivism
Explain why the following argument is a good one, assume (let's say to be definite) emotivism.
If stealing is wrong, getting your little brother to steal is wrong
Stealing is wrong [Boo to stealing!]
______________________________
Getting your little brother to steal is wrong
[Boo to getting your little brother to steal!]
First difficulty: explain why the argument is "valid" (100). Validity is usually explained in terms of truth, and it cannot be true that (?!) Boo! to stealing
Second (profound) difficulty: explain why the argument does not fail by equivocation. Whatever "stealing is wrong" means in the first premise, it can't be Boo! to stealing. Rejecting the Letter of Emotivism but Keeping its Spirit
That was Letter-Emotivism. Some find it fantastic; of course we have moral beliefs!! Spirit-Emotivists think Hume's argument (1)-(3) motivates a revisionary analysis of moral belief rather than outright rejection of it. There is such a thing, but a person's having a moral belief is the person's having an attitude, pro or con (103).
The advantage of Spirit-Emotivism is supposed to be that it does not fly in the face of common sense. (Imagine telling the judge: I know you say what I did was wrong but you don't really believe it. You're just saying Boo! to what I did. Well, Boo! to that.) Thomson now argues that this advantage is illusory. Spirit-Emotivism is acceptable only if Letter-Emotivism is.
Remember that emotivists are driven by the assumption that moral judgments are intrinsically motivating. To the Spirit-Emotivist, this means
Motivation Thesis: for all persons X, and all actions alpha, if X believes that he ought to do alpha then this belief by itself motivates him to do alpha (113)
Thomson argues that this is plausible only if X's believing that he ought to do alpha contains somehow his wanting do what he ought. (She calls that the Wants Thesis.) This in turn is plausible only if there is something incoherent in the idea of a person (Chilly) who has the same sorts of moral beliefs as we do but lacks the desire to do what he ought. (She calls that Weak Wants.)
But the Chilly story certainly looks coherent! The emotivist will have to maintain that Chilly does not mean the same as we do by 'ought.' Why not? The thought must be that arguments about oughts are (for us) arguments about what to do, or the word is cut off from its one source of meaning.
Now though we have come full circle: if there is nothing else for 'ought'-statements to mean, then there is nothing factual for them to mean, hence they lack truth-value -- which is what the Letter-Emotivist has been saying all along. Therefore, to the extent that a Spirit-Emotivist is committed to the Motivation Thesis, Spirit-Emotivism too should be rejected.