Tag Archives: Philosophy

Noncognitivism in Ethics by Mark Schroeder

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Non-cognitivism (with or without the hyphen) in ethics is the view that ethical statements do not describe features of actions or agents, but rather express attitudes of the speaker regarding those actions or agents. Quoting the philosopher Simon Blackburn: “Hence, it is supposed, there is nothing ethical to know, for knowledge aims to track or represent independent truths about things” (The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy). Mark Schroeder describes non-cognitivism, less clearly, as a non-descriptivist view that seeks “to explain the meaning of words by other means than by saying what they are about”.

Schroeder analyzes a number of 20th century non-cognitivist theories, including emotivism, prescriptivism and expressivism. He finds all of them lacking in various ways, especially in their failure to adequately explain how we actually use ethical language and reason about ethical subjects. But he also believes that non-cognitivist theories correctly draw attention to the fact that there is more to meaning than truth-conditions.

It seems to me that non-cognitivist theories are basically correct, but in a limited sense. We cannot analyze ethical statements in terms of attitudes, as some non-cognitivists (used to) do. For example, “Stealing is wrong” does not literally mean anything like “I disapprove of stealing and everyone else should too”. “Stealing is wrong” means that stealing conflicts with the moral rules. But what such a statement means in another sense, i.e. what we can conclude when someone says that stealing is wrong, is that the speaker has a certain negative attitude toward stealing and thinks that other people should have the same attitude. This is what it “means” or shows when someone says that stealing is wrong, although “stealing is wrong” has a different literal meaning. 

It’s obvious that ethical statements aren’t descriptions; they’re evaluations. They say how the world should be, not how it is, even though many of them are grammatically similar to descriptions and have literal meanings that imply that they are descriptive of some state of affairs, i.e. that some action is in harmony or conflict with certain moral rules or that some agent tends to obey or disobey those rules. Stating that an action is in conflict with a rule sounds like a description and has the force of a description — that is such a statement’s literal meaning. But making such a statement is evidence for a different state of affairs; it means that the speaker is opposed to the action in question and thinks other people should oppose it too.  (10/23/11)

The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory by David J. Chalmers

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The Conscious Mind is one of those philosophical works that becomes famous because it features interesting arguments in support of implausible conclusions. Chalmers argues for property dualism, the thesis that mental properties are fundamentally different from physical properties. In other words, mental states are not equivalent to, cannot be reduced to, and do not logically supervene on brain states. This is a more plausible view than the traditional dualist claim that there are mental substances (minds or souls) in addition to physical substances, and that the mental and physical substances somehow interact.  

Chalmers agrees that there are psycho-physical laws that relate brain states and mental states, but argues that physical properties and mental properties are ontologically distinct. Maybe this is the correct view, but Chalmers goes further when he begins to discuss a possible fundamental theory of consciousness. He thinks that we should ascribe consciousness to any system that exhibits the same causal relationships as a brain, e.g. automated systems, John Searle’s Chinese Room translation scheme, and Ned Block’s billion minds linked together by radio. Since he views consciousness as a fundamental property of the universe, he thinks that rocks and even sub-atomic particles might possess some simple form of proto-consciousness. He suggests that panpsychism is a real possibility. He also argues that the simplest interpretation of quantum mechanics involves minds branching into other minds, so that each of us is one of a vast set of similar minds, all having split off from our infant selves.

The naturalistic or property dualism that Chalmers advocates, featuring “physical properties, separate phenomenal properties, and a lawful connection between the two”, is certainly worth considering as a philosophical theory of mind. If a property is merely a way of being, maybe mental properties (what it is like to have experiences or to be an X) are fundamentally different from physical properties. However, his views on what systems or objects might be conscious are much less plausible, despite the many ingenious arguments that he offers.  (7/25/11)

Walking the Tightrope of Reason: The Precarious Life of a Rational Animal by Robert Fogelin

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It’s a long title for a short book about how difficult it is to be completely rational. 

Professor Fogelin begins by arguing that it is irrational to ignore the law of non-contradiction (we should never maintain that P and not P). However, he then shows that our beliefs are rarely completely consistent and that complete consistency is not even a reasonable goal.

Fogelin suggests that the rules we follow, such as the rules of language, logic, ethics and law, in fact, all of the rules that govern our lives, are “dilemma-prone”. Yet these rules are perfectly acceptable if we apply them in a “serious, purposive manner”. It is also crucial that we test our conclusions against experience — ideas need to be tested against something other than other ideas. He concludes that skeptical doubts can never be eliminated, but that skepticism has a role to play in limiting fanaticism (what Hume called “enthusiasm”). 

The helpful lesson of this book (helpful for philosophers anyway) is that the quest for certainty is a waste of time, even dangerous, since it can distract us from more important intellectual pursuits. It is good enough to be rational without aiming for complete and perfect rationality.  (6/3/11) 

The Sources of Normativity by Christine M. Korsgaard

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Professor Korsgaard argues that ethical normativity or value results from autonomous agents like ourselves reflecting on what we ought to do and then endorsing a rational course of action, i.e., a course of action based on reasons we can truthfully endorse. This is “reflective endorsement”. Actions and the reasons for those actions are good if they are well-considered and promote our “practical identity”, the conception of ourselves as valuable beings with lives worth living. And since we value our own humanity, we should value the humanity of others as well. 

Korsgaard says that obligations only exist in the first-person perspective: “in one sense, the obligatory is like the visible: it depends on how much of the light of reflection is on”. She also believes that we are subject to moral laws that we ourselves create (until we as individuals change those laws).  

She admits, however, that her argument will fail to convince someone who is completely skeptical about morality. She does not provide a non-moral foundation for morality (who could?). What Korsgaad does provide is an explanation of the role morality plays in our lives and how trying to be moral contributes to our self-image as proper human beings. 

Included in the book are responses from four well-known philosophers. I thought that their criticisms were more sensible and understandable than Korsgaard’s replies.  (5/2/11)

Moral Clarity: a Guide for Grown-Up Idealists by Susan Neiman

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Abraham did the right thing when he argued with God about God’s intention to kill everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah (not when he agreed to sacrifice his son Isaac). By standing up for his ethical ideals in opposition to the demands of his religion, Abraham foreshadowed the values of the Enlightenment.

Neiman believes that we should adopt certain key Enlightenment values, in opposition to cultural trends on both the right and the left (but mostly the right). She focuses on happiness, reason, reverence and hope. She contends that Enlightenment thinkers understood the limitations of reason. They also realized that progress is not inevitable. But thinkers like Kant showed the way to a universalist morality that favors reason over tradition, knowledge over superstition, and hope over fear.  (12/26/10)