Higher-Order Expressivism: the Dyadic Nature of Moral Judgement
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Higher-Order Expressivism: The Dyadic Nature of Moral Judgement Graham Bex-Priestley The University of Sheffield A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Submission date: September 2018 For Keanu Reeves Declaration This doctoral thesis is a presentation of my own research. It has not been submitted for another qualification to this or any other university. Wherever contributions of others are involved, every effort has been made to indicate this clearly, with due reference to the literature and acknowledgement of collaborative discussions. Preface I’ve had a lot of fun writing this thesis. A PhD is a long project, and it’s easy to get so bogged down in the details that we forget how privileged we are. For the last five years I have studied (and taught) my favourite subject. It has of course been a difficult endeavour, but a moment’s reflection reveals how vital returning to philosophy has been for my happiness. For me, philosophy is not merely a subject but an outlet, a meditation. It is where I can focus on just one thing. I consider myself exceptionally lucky for all the opportunities I have had throughout my life to get me to this point, and I am humbled by the thought that so few of us are so fortunate. The ideas that sparked this thesis began before I applied for university. At times I would feel guilty for not giving the money I’d earned at my Saturday job to those who needed it more, and I wondered whether I was in breach of a genuine moral requirement. This gave rise to more abstract questions about the foundations of morality. Are there any objective moral demands? Is morality real or did we just make it up? Would it matter either way? Other philosophical topics intrigued me, particularly free will and consciousness – like morality, notoriously tricky to mesh with a scientific worldview – but I found morality the most mysterious. It was Helen Frowe who gave me my first taste of formal metaethics in my second year of university. Helen was openly partial to Jonathan Dancy’s non-natural realism. While I didn’t want to reduce ethics to “just doing science,” I couldn’t bring myself to believe in a special non-natural realm of moral facts. Quite apart from its queerness and the threat from widespread moral disagreement, realism (or my internal caricature of it) seemed to give no place to the human sentiment. So when I was introduced to the theory that moral sentences are not true or false but expressions of our emotional attitudes, I was sold. Unsurprisingly my views have changed in the decade that has passed since then. Yet the core remains the same: I still defend the idea that moral viii sentences express our moral sentiments. Perhaps the biggest change in that time is my sympathy towards realistic metaethics. Whereas I once would describe myself as ‘shamelessly anti-realist,’ I now believe expressivism leads fluidly to a form of quasi-realism according to which there are moral facts that we can discover through non-scientific means. This thesis is the result of a struggle to keep ethics what it is without recourse to anything non-natural. All of this could not have been accomplished without a great number of people, and I would like to acknowledge some of them here. My three supervisors have been incredibly helpful in different and complimentary ways. Jimmy Lenman has given me an enormous amount of his time and he always struck the right balance of guidance and allowance for academic freedom. I am grateful to have had one of the world’s leading expressivists supervise my PhD. Jimmy’s help was not restricted to matters directly about my thesis. He has aided me with submissions to journals, conference talks, job applications and problems of a more personal nature. I could not have hoped for better support. To my first secondary supervisor Holly Lawford-Smith, thanks are due for keeping an eye on the bigger picture, for detailed help with a paper that has now become chapter 4, and for letting me stay at her empty Edinburgh flat when I visited for a conference. To my second secondary supervisor Yonatan Shemmer, I am much obliged for his incisive comments on my written work and for the many in-depth conversations about things that puzzle us both about expressivism. The time we spent co-authoring our paper on disagreement has also been extremely useful for getting to grips with issues that appear in this thesis. I heartily thank my friends Stephen Ingram and Lewis Brooks. It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of the influence these two philosophers have had on my thinking. Both have continually sharpened my understanding, challenged my sloppy arguments, shared with me their astoundingly vast knowledge of the literature, and have been exceedingly generous in giving up their time to read and comment on a draft of this thesis; without them it would have looked very different. In fact it was Stephen who, after hearing about my interest in metaethics, sent me a selection of key readings before I started my MA in 2013, and among them was Mike Ridge’s famous 2006 paper introducing ecumenical expressivism. I was hooked. Little did I know that I would be defending a version of it in my viva five years later. ix This brings me to Mike Ridge himself. It is obvious throughout the thesis how much of an intellectual debt I owe him. There are references to his work in all five chapters, and while I often argue against him, these are usually small brush strokes in a big picture. I like to think we’re on the same side. Further to his written work, I thank him for welcoming me so warmly to Edinburgh and for helping me with my own philosophical inquiry at various points. Even before I had met him in person I vividly remember chatting with him (nervously!) on the phone about expressivism and engaging in helpful lengthy email exchanges about my PhD proposal. It is wonderful that the chief ecumenical expressivist is equally kind to and enthusiastic about the expressivists in the early stages of their careers. Similar things can be said about Teemu Toppinen. I was convinced by his 2013 paper in which he argued for a kind of ecumenical expressivism that he called the higher-order state view and that I call, for shallow aesthetic reasons, higher-order expressivism. My thanks go out to him not only for his influential research but for the comments he has given and the discussions we have had about several pieces of my work that now appear in this thesis. It’s nice to have another metalhead to look up to. I am grateful to the University of Sheffield and the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities for funding this research and providing such a thriving environment for teaching and learning. This environment includes the large and splendid department of postgraduates who have listened to me pose most of the arguments you see in this thesis, and whose feedback I am thankful for. The other audiences I am indebted to are the audience of New Directions for Expressivism (a conference co-organised by Stephen Ingram and myself) and the audience of the 2018 annual conference for the British Society for Ethical Theory, both of whom heard me present what has now become chapter 5 and a forthcoming paper in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (printed here with the publisher’s kind permission). A great deal of help and encouragement has come from outside of academia. Without the support of my parents Karen and Nigel, as well as my grandparents Betty, Danny, and the late Grace and Ken, I would not have achieved the marks I did at undergraduate and MA level that enabled me to undertake this PhD. My sister Tara has been a pillar of emotional support, being both a shoulder to lean on and a fountain of good humour. Last and certainly not least, I must acknowledge the tremendous role that my spouse Novenka has played. I cannot describe everything they have x done without doubling the length of this preface. It has ranged from giving strategic advice about the thesis, to proof reading my work, to listening to me practise my presentations. They were a central part in the smooth running of New Directions for Expressivism. They are also responsible for my return to philosophy at the postgraduate level. Novenka could see I was unsatisfied with my career teaching maths, so when Jenny Saul advised I had a decent chance of getting funding for an MA in philosophy, they convinced me to go for it. Therefore to Novenka I express my deepest gratitude for being willing to sacrifice stability and financial security for my happiness… and for keeping us stocked with sci-fi. Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 ~1~ What is Expressivism? ................................................................................ 5 1. Expressing States of Mind ........................................................................... 6 2. Quasi-Realism.............................................................................................. 21 3. Semantics and Metasemantics .................................................................. 33 4. Halting Minimalism ................................................................................... 50 ~2~ The Problem with Purity .......................................................................... 65 1. The Frege-Geach Problem ......................................................................... 66 2. Minimalist Solutions ..................................................................................