Metaethical pluralism
What is it to think (and say) that an act is morally wrong (right, good, bad etc)? Such questions, about the nature and meaning of moral judgments, belong to the most fundamental questions in moral philosophy. Their answers also have bearing on questions regarding the possibility of objective moral facts and knowledge. Metaethicists have reached widely different answers to the question, e.g.: that moral judgments are beliefs about objective moral facts; that they are beliefs the truth of which is context-dependent and varies between persons; that they are not beliefs but negative (or positive) attitudes towards actions. These theories present different views of what moral judgments are, but they share what we can call the uniformity assumption: that the same analysis holds for all wrongness-judgments (and other moral judgments). Recently, some philosophers have questioned this assumption and suggested metaethical pluralism as an alternative - the view that different analyses hold for different wrongness-judgments. This idea potentially explains the lack of consensus about the nature of moral judgments. The purpose of this project is to systematically examine the case in favor of metaethical pluralism and to address the main challenges that it faces. I will compare different pluralist views proposed, examine objections and connect the discussion of metaethical pluralism to wider philosophical questions about meaning, concepts, philosophical disagreement and methodology.
Final report
The aim of this project has been to develop aspects of Metaethical Pluralism. Philosophers disagree about the correct analysis of moral judgments, that is, they accept different theories about what it is to say or think that an act is morally wrong, right, good, bad, etc. For example: non-naturalists analyze judgments that action A is wrong as beliefs that A has some special normative property; naturalists analyze them as beliefs that A has some “natural” property (e.g., causes suffering or harm); contextualists/relativists analyze them as beliefs that A is disapproved of by the speaker’s own or her community’s moral standard; non-cognitivists analyze them as being negative attitudes towards A (rather than beliefs). A shared assumption behind all of these theories is that one single analysis is correct about all moral wrongness-judgments. This is what metaethical pluralism questions: Different analyses can be correct for the moral assertions/judgments of different persons (or perhaps in different contexts). I have defended a view like this in previous work, based on the idea that part of the explanation of the disagreement between metaethicists (about the correct analysis) is that people have different intuitions about what moral judgments are about (or what it takes for e.g., an act to be morally wrong). Such intuitions correspond to dispositions to use moral concepts, and if we connect this to the common idea that meaning is determined by use, variation in such dispositions may indicate variation in conceptual content. The aim of this project has been to investigate this view, and further develop a version of it that I have started to defend in earlier work. The main work done in the project has been to develop three aspects of the theory. These also correspond to the three main results.
1. The first concerns a necessary precondition for pluralism to make sense to begin with. The core of metaethical pluralism (of the sort that I propose) is the claim that two people can have beliefs in different propositions, yet can both be beliefs that act A is morally wrong. However, this goes against a fundamental and simple view about what it is to believe the same thing, what we can call propositionalism:
To believe that A is a chair is to believe the proposition that x is a chair.
To believe that A is wrong is to believe the proposition that A is wrong
So one might think that metaethical pluralism is implausible, since it goes against this seemingly commonsensical and reasonable view. But I propose that it is propositionalism that is false. I argue that it is not only a mistaken view when it comes to moral or other normative beliefs, propositionalism is incorrect in general. To believe that A is a chair, for example, is not to believe some specific content, i.e., the proposition that A is a chair. This is the main idea defended in one submitted paper (“Mananas, Flusses and Jartles: Belief Individuation in light of Peripheral Concept Variation”) and an important part of another published paper (“Reconsidering the Meta-ethical Implications of Motivational Internalism and Externalism, 2020”).
2. The second main result concerns the perhaps most common objection to views like metaethical pluralism (and other moral relativist/contextualist views): namely that they cannot account for disagreement: They seem to imply that people speak past each other rather than disagree. Pluralists cannot use a standard “doxastic account” of moral disagreements, that is, they cannot understand disagreement as beliefs that clash in the sense that their content consist in mutually inconsistent propositions. Also, the pluralist view I defend cannot be combined with a non-cognitivist explanation of moral disagreements in terms of clashing desires, since it also implies that moral judgments are not desires, and are not necessarily accompanied by desires. Thus, a new account of moral disagreement is needed if pluralism (or some other similar view) is to be defended.
The theory that I develop and defend is that deontic moral disagreement can be accounted for in terms of the fact that deontic moral judgments have practical direction: that is, they are judgments that one can act in accordance (or discordance) with. A and B morally disagree, then, iff: there is some action that is in accordance with A’s judgment but in discordance with B’s judgment. (This is the basic idea - some qualifications have to be made to account for complex moral disagreements.) If this is the case, there is, as it were, a conflict between the practical implications of the judgments, which is similar to the non-cognitivist account but without presupposing a close relation between moral judgments and desires. The development of this idea has two parts. First, the idea that normative disagreement can be accounted for in terms of practical direction. Second, for this view to be of help for metaethical pluralism, pluralism needs to be consistent with the idea that moral judgments (necessarily) have practical direction: otherwise, not all moral disagreements can be accounted for in terms of practical direction. But: this is not obviously so. Desires have practical direction (you can act in accordance with your desires), but ordinary beliefs do not. I argue that, given a proper understanding of what it takes to be a mental state that one can act in accordance with, it is reasonable to say that moral beliefs are such mental states. A paper that presents this view is currently submitted and under review (“Moral Disagreement and Practical Direction”)
3. The third main result concerns another objection to pluralism: Pluralism implies that different people’s moral beliefs have different content, and that some are about ordinary natural properties (e.g., about the believers own moral standard). A common objection to such naturalist views about the content of moral belief is that they remove the normativity from moral judgments. I have developed a new idea about how to account for the normativity of moral judgments. Very shortly, this is the idea: The first thing to observe is that we experience certain things as things that “can be acted in accordance with”. We can, for example, build a house in accordance with a blue print, assemble furniture in accordance with an IKEA assembly instruction, and play in accordance with chess rules. I argue that we experience them in this way because they are things that have certain action-guiding roles in our social practices. We have them to guide our actions in certain ways, and this explain why acting in those ways is experienced as ways of acting in accordance with them. Furthermore, when we experience them in this way, we also experience them as telling us to build, assemble and play in certain ways. I argue that this is the start of an explanation of our intuitions of normativity: their telling us to act in certain ways, is for them to be normative, at least in a weak sense. I argue that the same kind of explanation can explain why we see moral facts (the facts that moral judgments are about) as things that we can act in accordance with and as facts that tell us how to act. It is true that we don’t see the other phenomena as genuinely normative in the sense as we see moral facts to be normative: not as really demanding of us that we act in some way, or as really giving us a reason to act. But the difference can be explained: when it comes to moral facts we don’t experience them as telling us what to do because some institution or convention have created them to guide behavior: this makes us experience them as objectively telling us how to act. I argue for this idea in a submitted paper (“Practicality and Normativity for Moral Naturalists”)
The results of the project have been presented at conferences (2017 in Lisbon, 2018 in Warsaw and Kent, 2019 in Groningen, and 2020 (but postponed to 2021) in Copenhagen), and at various seminars.
Publications
Ragnar Francén (2020) “Reconsidering the Meta-ethical Implications of Motivational Internalism and Externalism” Theoria, 86 (3): 359-388
https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12245 (Open access)
Submitted papers
“Moral Disagreement and Practical Direction”
“Practicality and Normativity for Moral Naturalists”
“Mananas, Flusses and Jartles: Belief Individuation in light of Peripheral Concept Variation”
“Finding Wrong”
1. The first concerns a necessary precondition for pluralism to make sense to begin with. The core of metaethical pluralism (of the sort that I propose) is the claim that two people can have beliefs in different propositions, yet can both be beliefs that act A is morally wrong. However, this goes against a fundamental and simple view about what it is to believe the same thing, what we can call propositionalism:
To believe that A is a chair is to believe the proposition that x is a chair.
To believe that A is wrong is to believe the proposition that A is wrong
So one might think that metaethical pluralism is implausible, since it goes against this seemingly commonsensical and reasonable view. But I propose that it is propositionalism that is false. I argue that it is not only a mistaken view when it comes to moral or other normative beliefs, propositionalism is incorrect in general. To believe that A is a chair, for example, is not to believe some specific content, i.e., the proposition that A is a chair. This is the main idea defended in one submitted paper (“Mananas, Flusses and Jartles: Belief Individuation in light of Peripheral Concept Variation”) and an important part of another published paper (“Reconsidering the Meta-ethical Implications of Motivational Internalism and Externalism, 2020”).
2. The second main result concerns the perhaps most common objection to views like metaethical pluralism (and other moral relativist/contextualist views): namely that they cannot account for disagreement: They seem to imply that people speak past each other rather than disagree. Pluralists cannot use a standard “doxastic account” of moral disagreements, that is, they cannot understand disagreement as beliefs that clash in the sense that their content consist in mutually inconsistent propositions. Also, the pluralist view I defend cannot be combined with a non-cognitivist explanation of moral disagreements in terms of clashing desires, since it also implies that moral judgments are not desires, and are not necessarily accompanied by desires. Thus, a new account of moral disagreement is needed if pluralism (or some other similar view) is to be defended.
The theory that I develop and defend is that deontic moral disagreement can be accounted for in terms of the fact that deontic moral judgments have practical direction: that is, they are judgments that one can act in accordance (or discordance) with. A and B morally disagree, then, iff: there is some action that is in accordance with A’s judgment but in discordance with B’s judgment. (This is the basic idea - some qualifications have to be made to account for complex moral disagreements.) If this is the case, there is, as it were, a conflict between the practical implications of the judgments, which is similar to the non-cognitivist account but without presupposing a close relation between moral judgments and desires. The development of this idea has two parts. First, the idea that normative disagreement can be accounted for in terms of practical direction. Second, for this view to be of help for metaethical pluralism, pluralism needs to be consistent with the idea that moral judgments (necessarily) have practical direction: otherwise, not all moral disagreements can be accounted for in terms of practical direction. But: this is not obviously so. Desires have practical direction (you can act in accordance with your desires), but ordinary beliefs do not. I argue that, given a proper understanding of what it takes to be a mental state that one can act in accordance with, it is reasonable to say that moral beliefs are such mental states. A paper that presents this view is currently submitted and under review (“Moral Disagreement and Practical Direction”)
3. The third main result concerns another objection to pluralism: Pluralism implies that different people’s moral beliefs have different content, and that some are about ordinary natural properties (e.g., about the believers own moral standard). A common objection to such naturalist views about the content of moral belief is that they remove the normativity from moral judgments. I have developed a new idea about how to account for the normativity of moral judgments. Very shortly, this is the idea: The first thing to observe is that we experience certain things as things that “can be acted in accordance with”. We can, for example, build a house in accordance with a blue print, assemble furniture in accordance with an IKEA assembly instruction, and play in accordance with chess rules. I argue that we experience them in this way because they are things that have certain action-guiding roles in our social practices. We have them to guide our actions in certain ways, and this explain why acting in those ways is experienced as ways of acting in accordance with them. Furthermore, when we experience them in this way, we also experience them as telling us to build, assemble and play in certain ways. I argue that this is the start of an explanation of our intuitions of normativity: their telling us to act in certain ways, is for them to be normative, at least in a weak sense. I argue that the same kind of explanation can explain why we see moral facts (the facts that moral judgments are about) as things that we can act in accordance with and as facts that tell us how to act. It is true that we don’t see the other phenomena as genuinely normative in the sense as we see moral facts to be normative: not as really demanding of us that we act in some way, or as really giving us a reason to act. But the difference can be explained: when it comes to moral facts we don’t experience them as telling us what to do because some institution or convention have created them to guide behavior: this makes us experience them as objectively telling us how to act. I argue for this idea in a submitted paper (“Practicality and Normativity for Moral Naturalists”)
The results of the project have been presented at conferences (2017 in Lisbon, 2018 in Warsaw and Kent, 2019 in Groningen, and 2020 (but postponed to 2021) in Copenhagen), and at various seminars.
Publications
Ragnar Francén (2020) “Reconsidering the Meta-ethical Implications of Motivational Internalism and Externalism” Theoria, 86 (3): 359-388
https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12245 (Open access)
Submitted papers
“Moral Disagreement and Practical Direction”
“Practicality and Normativity for Moral Naturalists”
“Mananas, Flusses and Jartles: Belief Individuation in light of Peripheral Concept Variation”
“Finding Wrong”