Against Metaethical Descriptivism: The Semantic Problem Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Mitchell, Steven Cole Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 30/09/2021 17:07:01 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/202935 1 AGAINST METAETHICAL DESCRIPTIVISM: THE SEMANTIC PROBLEM by STEVEN COLE MITCHELL ________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2011 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Steven Cole Mitchell entitled Against Metaethical Descriptivism: The Semantic Problem and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________________________________________________________________ Date: August 12, 2011 Mark Timmons _______________________________________________________________________ Date: August 12, 2011 Michael Gill _______________________________________________________________________ Date: August 12, 2011 Terry Horgan _______________________________________________________________________ Date: _______________________________________________________________________ Date: Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: August 12, 2011 Dissertation Director: Mark Timmons 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: Steven Cole Mitchell 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My long-suffering dissertation director was Mark Timmons: a man of great learning and parts, endowed with an encouraging spirit and the patience of Job. My other committee members, Michael Gill and Terry Horgan, gave helpful feedback and flattered my ego at pivotal moments. David Owen went out of his way to help me begin work on the dissertation, and Houston Smit and Suzi Dovi helped me overcome personal disaster. Audiences at the University of Arizona and Washington University at St. Louis treated me to a kind and stimulating reception when chapters were presented. I discussed metaethics with virtually all of the Arizona professors and graduate students over the years—Ian Evans deserves special mention for some clutch midwifing. My interest in metaethics was sparked back at the University of Alabama, most especially by Stuart Rachels. And I should thank all the professors who put metaethics papers online: this was a godsend when I lived abroad and was first gripped by my current metaethical intuitions. Friends sometimes make life marginally tolerable: thanks to everyone from Murfreesboro, Tuscaloosa, Litoměřice, Hradec Králové, and Tucson. Thanks to my family for never giving me a hard time about this goofy career path, and for supporting me when things got extra stupid. 5 DEDICATION To the fans. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................7 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION............................................................................8 CHAPTER 2: NATURALISM..............................................................................16 2.1 Schroeder on normative reasons..........................................................16 2.2 Copp’s society-centered realist-expressivism......................................23 2.3 Critique of Copp..................................................................................32 CHAPTER 3: NONNATURALISM.....................................................................40 3.1 Textbook nonnaturalism.......................................................................41 3.2 Semantic arguments against naturalism...............................................44 3.3 Hume and Moore against nonnaturalism.............................................50 3.4 Moral Twin Earth against nonnaturalism............................................57 3.5 Nonnormative Conceptual Role Semantics.........................................63 3.6 Normative Conceptual Role Semantics...............................................68 3.7 Two objections.....................................................................................74 3.8 Conclusion...........................................................................................83 CHAPTER 4: QUIETISM.....................................................................................85 4.1 Introduction..........................................................................................85 4.2 Dworkin’s theory.................................................................................89 4.3 Dworkin on error-theory......................................................................94 4.4 Dworkin on expressivism..................................................................105 4.5 Dworkin and metaphysical quietism..................................................113 CHAPTER 5: ERROR-THEORY.......................................................................119 5.1 The possible existence of moral properties........................................119 5.2 Preview of the argument....................................................................123 5.3 Mackie’s error-theory........................................................................125 5.4 The argument in detail.......................................................................129 5.5 Mackie’s proposed explanation of supervenience.............................135 5.6 Error-theories in other domains.........................................................139 5.7 Moral properties as impossible?........................................................140 CHAPTER 6: FICTIONALISM..........................................................................146 6.1 Joyce’s fictionalism...........................................................................146 6.2 Kalderon: an overview.......................................................................162 6.3. Kalderon: a critique...........................................................................174 CHAPTER 7: BLACKBURN’S SUPERVENIENCE ARGUMENT.................183 7.1. Preliminary points.............................................................................184 7.2. How the argument works..................................................................186 7.3. Countering objections with conceptual competence.........................190 7.4. Natural kinds.....................................................................................200 7.5. Other targets......................................................................................207 7.6. Conclusion........................................................................................215 WORKS CITED..................................................................................................216 7 ABSTRACT In my dissertation I argue that prominent descriptivist metaethical views face a serious semantic problem. According to standard descriptivism, moral thought and discourse purports to describe some ontology of moral properties and/or relations: e.g., the term ‘good’ purports to refer to some property or cluster of properties. Central to any such theory, then, is the recognition of certain items of ontology which, should they actually exist, would count as the referents of moral terms and concepts. And since one commonly accepted feature of moral thought and discourse is a supervenience constraint, descriptivists hold that any ontology suitable for morality would have to supervene upon non-moral ontology. But this lands descriptivists with the task of providing a semantic account capable of relating this ontology to moral terms and concepts. That is, they must explain why it is that certain items of ontology and not others would count as the referents of moral terms and concepts, in a way that is consistent with the supervenience constraint. I argue that this important explanatory task cannot be carried out. And because the problem generalizes from metaethics to all normativity, we are left with good reason to pursue alternatives to descriptivist accounts of normative semantics.