Abstract
It is often said that our moral experience, broadly construed to include our ways of thinking and talking about morality, has a certain objective-seeming character to it, and that this supports a presumption in favor of objectivist moral theories (according to which morality is a realm of facts or truths) and against anti-objectivist theories like Mackie's error theory (according to which it is not). In this chapter, I argue that our experience of morality does not support objectivist moral theories in this way. I begin by arguing that our moral experience does not have the uniformly objective-seeming character it is typically claimed to have. I go on to argue that even if moral experience were to presuppose or display morality as a realm of fact, we would still need a reason for taking that to support theories according to which it is such a realm. I consider what I take to be the four most promising ways of attempting to supply such a reason: (A) inference to the best explanation, (B) epistemic conservatism, (C) the principle of credulity, and (D) the method of wide reflective equilibrium. In each case, I argue, the strategy in question does not support a presumption in favor of objectivist moral theories.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
For convenience, I'll omit “or at least the presumption…” in what follows. It seems fair to assume that those employing the presumption are at least implicitly relying on the AME. Otherwise they owe us an alternative defense of the presumption, and it is hard to imagine what that could be.
- 3.
I say “… consider themselves to be moral realists” because it has become less and less obvious that we can find a satisfactory account of what it is to be a moral realist. (See Dreier, this volume.) Among the many in this category who appear to accept some version of the AME are: Bloomfield (2001), Brink (1989), Dancy (1986), Lovibond (1983), McNaughton (1988), Nagel (1986), Shafer-Landau (2003), Smith (1994), and Wiggins (1988).
- 4.
See also Nagel (1986): “[I]t is very difficult to argue for such a possibility [as value realism] except by refuting certain arguments against it” (p. 143).
- 5.
For simplicity's sake, I'll speak simply of morality as a (possible) realm of fact.
- 6.
See, for example, Korsgaard (1996, pp. 35–37, 44–48, 112). Although Korsgaard denies that there are moral facts, she nevertheless holds that there are correct answers to moral questions.
- 7.
Some prefer the etymologically more revealing “descriptivism/non-descriptivism” to the more common “cognitivism/noncognitivism.” See Timmons (1999, p. 19).
- 8.
For related views, see Timmons (1999) and Wright (1992). See also Gibbard (1990, especially Chapter 8–13), who employs a number of ingenious strategies for accommodating what he calls the “objective pretensions” of moral thought and language. For earlier noncognitivist attempts to capture some of this seeming objectivity, see Stevenson (1950) and Hare (1981).
- 9.
- 10.
Indeed, even what counts as “experience” will be disputed. Here I use the term very broadly.
- 11.
Brink distinguishes features of our moral experience he thinks count against noncognitivism from those he thinks count against constructivism.
- 12.
For another litany of objective-seeming features, followed by an extended discussion of one of them, see Timmons (1999, pp. 74–106).
- 13.
- 14.
McNaughton (1988, pp. 3–4) himself begins his book with a discussion of “two contrasting feelings about our moral life that all of us share to some extent,” one of which “appears to lead to the view that there is nothing independent of our moral opinions that determines whether or not they are correct.”
- 15.
For a sustained discussion of the parallels between gastronomic and moral realism, see Loeb (2003).
- 16.
By analogy, if Kant's arguments were sound, then human experience of objects would presuppose, in this second sense, that we have a priori concepts that correctly apply to things. The existence of these a priori concepts would be a necessary condition of our experience of objects; however, the claim that they exist is one very few people would even recognize to be true.
- 17.
For example, Dancy (1986) says that “we abandon moral realism at the cost of making our moral experience unintelligible,” and that we can “make satisfactory sense of our experience of the moral properties of objects” only on the assumption that moral realism is correct (p. 173). See also Nagel (1986, p. 146), McNaughton (1988, pp. 16 and 52), and Smith (1994, pp. 5, 11). Timmons' term, “accommodate,” is ambiguous in this way as well (Timmons 1999, p. 12).
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
This is (roughly) Quine's (1951) formulation of the principle of conservatism. Other formulations have been put forward, but the differences do not affect the argument given here.
- 22.
For a persuasive critique of the principle of conservatism, see Christensen (1994). My discussion here has benefited greatly from that paper and from conversations with its author.
- 23.
- 24.
Even before the publication of Reid's “Essays” in 1785, Richard Price (1758/1948, p. 45) offered something like this version of the argument: “Is there nothing truly wrong in the… misery of an innocent being? – ‘It appears wrong to us.' – And what reason can you have for doubting, whether it appears what it is?”
- 25.
For an anti-skeptical suggestion along these lines, see Chisholm (1977).
- 26.
- 27.
On most views of this sort, the justification would not depend upon anyone's having actually gone through such a process, but on the availability of an explanatory picture of the kind gestured at here. Thus we might not currently be in a position to know (or be justified in believing) that certain of our beliefs are justified, even if they are. Still, if we are not in such a position, then we should not presume that those beliefs are justified until our explanatory theory improves.
References
Blackburn, S. 1993. Errors and the phenomenology of value. In his Essays in quasi-realism, 149–165. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bloomfield, P. 2001. Moral reality. Oxford University Press: New York.
Brink, D. 1989. Moral realism and the foundations of ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, R. 1977. Theory of knowledge. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Christensen, D. 1994. Conservatism in epistemology. Noûs 28: 69–89.
Dancy, J. 1986. Two conceptions of moral realism. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 60(suppl.): 167–187.
Dworkin, R. 1996. Objectivity and truth: You'd better believe it. Philosophy and Public Affairs 25: 87–139.
Garner, R. 1994. Beyond morality. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Gibbard, A. 1990. Wise choices, apt feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Greene, J. 2002. The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad truth about morality and what to do about it. Dissertation, Princeton University.
Hare, R. M. 1981. Moral thinking. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Harman, G. 1977. The nature of morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harman, G. 1986. Moral explanations of natural facts: Can moral claims be tested against moral reality? Southern Journal of Philososphy 24(suppl.): 57–68.
Hookway, C. 1986. Two conceptions of moral realism. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 60(suppl.): 167–187.
Jackson, F. 1998. From metaphysics to ethics: A defence of conceptual analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Joyce, R. 2001. The myth of morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Joyce, R. 2006. The evolution of morality. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Korsgaard, C. 1996. The sources of normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lillehammer, H. 2004. Moral error theory. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 104: 95–111.
Loeb, D. 2003. Gastronomic realism: A cautionary tale. Journal of Theoretical Philosophical Psychology 23: 30–49.
Loeb, D. 2005. Moral explanations of moral beliefs. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70: 193–208.
Loeb, D. 2008. Moral incoherentism: How to pull a metaphysical rabbit out of a semantic hat. In Moral psychology, vol. 2: The cognitive science of morality, ed. W. Sinnott-Armstrong. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lovibond, S. 1983. Realism and imagination in ethics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing right and wrong. New York: Penguin.
McNaughton, D. 1988. Moral vision. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Nagel, T. 1986. The view from nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nagel, T. 1997. The last word. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nichols, S. 2004. Sentimental rules: On the natural foundations of moral judgment. New York: Oxford University Press.
Price, R. 1758. A review of the principal questions in morals, ed. D. D. Raphael. 1948. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Quine, W. V. 1951. Two dogmas of empiricism. Philosophical Review 60: 20–43.
Reid, T. 1785. Essays on the intellectual powers of man. In Inquiry and essays, eds. Ronald B. and Keith L. 1975. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Schiffer, S. 1990. Meaning and value. Journal of Philosophy 87: 602–614.
Shafer-Landau, R. 2003. Moral realism: A defence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, M. 1993. Objectivity and moral realism: On the significance of the phenomenology of moral experience. In Reality, representation, and projection, eds. J. Haldane and C. Wright, 235–255. New York: Oxford University Press.
Smith, M. 1994. The moral problem. Oxford: Blackwell.
Stevenson, C. L. 1950. The emotive conception of ethics and its cognitive implications. Philosophical Review 59: 291–304.
Sturgeon, N. 1984. Moral explanations. In Morality, reason and truth, eds. D. Copp and D. Zimmerman, 49–78. Totowa: Rowman and Allanheld.
Swinburne, R. 1979. The existence of God. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Timmons, M. 1999. Morality without foundations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wiggins, D. 1988. Truth, invention, and the meaning of life. In Essays on moral realism, ed. G. Sayre-McCord, 127–165. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Wright, C. 1992. Truth and objectivity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Acknowledgments
For their comments, encouragement, criticism, patience, and generosity, I am grateful to Paul Bloomfield, Sin yee Chan, David Christensen, Stephen Darwall, Tyler Doggett, Richard Joyce, Simon Kirchin, Hilary Kornblith, Arthur Kuflik, William Mann, Mark Moyer, Derk Pereboom, Seth Shabo, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. I wish to thank the Dean's Office, College of Arts and Sciences, The University of Vermont for providing modest grant support for an initial draft of this chapter. I am also grateful to the attendees at a colloquium at Brandeis University, a number of undergraduate students at Vermont (forced to read various drafts), and several anonymous referees (likewise). As always, my wife, Barbara Rachelson, suffered through many, many drafts and conversations about this chapter and was a tremendous help to me. I started work on this chapter so long ago that I am sure I have forgotten many others to whom thanks are due. You know who you are. Thanks.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Loeb, D. (2010). The Argument from Moral Experience. In: Joyce, R., Kirchin, S. (eds) A World Without Values. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 114. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3339-0_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3339-0_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-3338-3
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-3339-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)