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Notes
See Simon Blackburn, “Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism,” in Fictionalism in Metaphysics, ed. Mark Kalderon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 322–338; Blackburn, Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).
See Mark E. Kalderon, Moral Fictionalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
John L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (London: Pelican Books, 1977), p. 15.
Ibid., p. 16.
See Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1896); Dworkin, “Objectivity and Truth: You’d Better Believe It,” 25 Philosophy and Public Affairs (1996): pp. 87–139; Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011); Matthew H. Kramer, Moral Realism as Moral Doctrine (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009); Jeremy Fantl, “Is Metaethics Morally Neutral?” 87 Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (2006): pp. 24–44; Mark Hanin, “Naturalistic Moral Realism and Moral Disagreement: David Copp’s Account,” 18 Res Publica (2012): pp. 283–301.
Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs, p. 40.
See Charles Pigden, “Nihilism, Nietzsche and the Doppelganger Problem,” 10 Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (2007): pp. 441–456; Jonas Olson, “In Defence of Moral Error Theory,” in New Waves in Metaethics, ed. Michael Brady (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 62–84.
The anti-Archimedean posture therefore differs from a “Moorean Argument” (Olson, op. cit., p. 66), according to which we should have more confidence in some moral convictions than in the fruits of esoteric philosophizing. While the Moorean accepts error theory at face value without doubting its coherence, the anti-Archimedean does not.
Pigden, op. cit., p. 452.
Pigden, op. cit., p. 453.
Olson, op. cit., p. 69.
The placement of the negation operator requires clarification:
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(a)
Acts of torture-for-pleasure are wrong.
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(b)
It is not the case that acts of torture-for-pleasure are wrong.
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(c)
Acts of torture-for-pleasure are not wrong.
The logical negation of (a) is (b). According to the No Entailment Thesis, (b) does not entail, “Acts of torture-for-pleasure are permissible.” By treating (b) and (c) interchangeably, Pigden and Olson introduce the possibility of confusion. It might be thought that – whereas (b) does not entail the permissibility of torture – (c) does. It might be thought that “not wrong” entails “permissible” and that “not permissible” entails “wrong.” Such entailment would be consistent with the No Entailment Thesis formulated using (b)-type statements. To avoid ambiguity in discussing the Reinforced Doppelganger Problem, the negation applied to (a) should be propositional rather than predicational.
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(a)
Pigden, op. cit., p. 454. For a substantive moral argument in favor of the No Entailment Thesis, see Kramer, op. cit., pp. 109–111.
Dworkin, “Objectivity and Truth,” p. 131; see Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs, pp. 44, 92.
Pigden, op. cit., pp. 453–454.
Dworkin, “Objectivity and Truth,” p. 99.
For a similar formulation, see Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs, p. 176.
Michael Smith, in rebutting Dworkin’s critique of external skepticism, quotes a passage from the manuscript of Justice for Hedgehogs that seems to affirm (RD1); see Smith, “Dworkin on External Skepticism,” 90 Boston University Law Review (2010): pp. 509–520, at pp. 511–512. In his book, Dworkin cites Smith’s paper, excises that passage, and makes his familiar case against error theory (Justice for Hedgehogs, pp. 42–44). There remains one questionable feature of Dworkin’s discussion that should be flagged. Consider a debate between two people:
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(1)
“Abortion is never either morally required or morally forbidden. No one has a categorical reason either way. It is always permissible and never mandatory, like cutting your fingernails.”
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(2)
“Abortion is never either morally forbidden or morally required or morally permissible.”
Dworkin writes that (2) “agrees with (1) and cannot say, without contradiction, that what (1) says is false (or neither true nor false)”; moreover, (2) “makes a much more general claim than (1) does, but his claim includes (1)’s” (Justice for Hedgehogs, p. 43). Obviously, (2) cannot agree with (1) on everything; nor can (2) claim everything that (1) claims. For, Dworkin’s own formulation of (1) and (2) includes a pair of logically inconsistent propositions: abortion is “always permissible,” and abortion is “never…morally permissible.” On a charitable reading of Dworkin’s comments, (2) agrees with (1) on some matters, and (2)’s position includes certain tenets from (1)’s position. This weak reading is all that is required for the anti-Archimedean argument to succeed.
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(1)
Dworkin, “Replies,” Book Symposium: Justice for Hedgehogs, 73 Analysis (2013): pp. 139–146, at p. 143.
Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs, p. 42.
Ibid., p. 44.
If Dworkin in fact affirms the Doppelganger Principles, then the rebuttals urged by Pigden and Olson would have merit. But Dworkin has no monopoly on anti-Archimedean views.
Pigden has long championed a version of Hume’s Law; see Pigden, “Logic and the Autonomy of Ethics,” 67 Australasian Journal of Philosophy (1989): pp. 127–151. Olson appears to accept Hume’s Law (Olson, op. cit., p. 83 n. 32). Mackie criticized John Searle’s attempt to derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ (Mackie, op. cit., pp. 66–72). Mackie did believe that an ‘ought’ can be derived from an ‘is,’ but “only by speaking within some institution” (Ibid., p. 72). He never said that a non-institutional ‘ought’ can be derived either from an institutional ‘is’ or from a non-institutional ‘is.’
Unlike the error theorist, however, I concur with Dworkin that Hume’s Law is “itself a moral principle[:]…any argument that either supports or undermines a moral claim must include or presuppose further moral claims or assumptions” (Justice for Hedgehogs, p. 99). Of course, one can ascertain whether Hume’s Law is being complied with in this or that situation without presupposing the truth of any moral principle(s). In this sense, Hume’s Law is a formal doctrine. But the justification and status of Hume’s Law are both substantively engaged. Thus Hume’s Law is a value-neutral thesis and a value-dependent thesis; see Matthew Kramer, “Conceptual Analysis and Distributive Justice,” Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, forthcoming).
Blackburn, “Securing the Nots: Moral Epistemology for the Quasi-Realist,” in New Readings in Moral Epistemology, ed. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 82–100, at p. 92.
Pigden, “On the Triviality of Hume’s Law: A Reply to Gerhard Schurz,” in Hume on ‘Is’ and ‘Ought,’ ed. Charles Pigden (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 217–238, at p. 231.
I am grateful to Charles Pigden for helpful comments in private correspondence. Naturally, his provision of comments is not to be taken as an endorsement of anything that I have written.
Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs, p. 32; also see Ibid., pp. 9, 26, 41, 46–48; Law’s Empire, pp. 80–81; “Objectivity and Truth,” pp. 104–105.
Olson, op. cit., p. 70.
Pigden, “Nihilism, Nietzsche and the Doppelganger Problem,” p. 451.
Dworkin, “Objectivity and Truth,” p. 105.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 120.
See Dworkin, “Objectivity and Truth,” p. 103, and Kramer, “Working on the inside: Ronald Dworkin’s moral philosophy,” Book Symposium: Justice for Hedgehogs, 73 Analysis (2013): pp. 118–129, at pp. 121–122.
Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs, p. 11.
Dworkin, “Objectivity and Truth,” p. 101.
Kramer, Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine, pp. 272–273; also see Kramer, “Working on the inside,” pp. 120–122.
Error theorists may wish to raise various technical challenges to a minimalist theory of truth. Because I am concentrating on minimalism about properties and facts in the present paper, I leave this matter aside. For extended remarks about formulating a deflationary theory of truth in the context of a moral argument for anti-Archimedeanism, see Kramer, Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine, pp. 273–287.
But see n. 23 above for likely disagreement over the ultimate justification for Hume’s Law.
Pigden, “Nihilism, Nietzsche and the Doppelganger Problem,” p. 451. Pigden introduces this restriction to get around the Doppelganger Problem: If, according to error theorists, moral statement M is false, then its logical negation, ~M, must be true. But if ~M is itself a moral statement, then error theory would be self-defeating. And it is highly plausible, says Pigden, that propositions like “It is not the case that we ought to keep our marriage vows” are indeed substantively moral, given their “considerable impact on our conduct” (Ibid.). Olson regards Pigden’s restriction as unnecessary (Olson, op. cit., p. 70).
I thank an anonymous referee for the Journal of Value Inquiry for suggesting an approach along these lines.
Though a conclusion validly derived from a false premise is not ipso facto itself false, (E-T3) and (E-T5) are indeed both false.
For perusing an early draft of this article I would like to thank Hallvard Lillehammer.
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Hanin, M. Ethical Anti-Archimedeanism and Moral Error Theory. J Value Inquiry 47, 359–374 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-013-9394-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-013-9394-9