MORAL DISAGREEMENT AND SHARED MEANING DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By David Allen Merli, MA * * * * * The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Justin D’Arms, Adviser Professor Don Hubin ________________________ Professor Dan Farrell Adviser Department of Philosophy ABSTRACT In order to have genuine disagreement, interlocutors must share terms, meanings, and concepts. Without this, their dispute is merely verbal; it rests on linguistic confusion. This is true of all conversation, but many philosophers have thought that the univocity of moral discourse poses special problems. Disputes seem intractable, disputants have radically different standards for applying moral terms, and communities lack the sorts of authority and deference relations that are typical in straightforward empirical disagreement. These and other features of our moralizing yield a potent philosophical puzzle: how is it that moral evaluators can share a subject matter while thinking such different things? Traditionally, the need to ensure the univocity of moral conversation has provided one of the central motivations for noncognitivist theories of moral discourse. If, as noncognitivists suggest, moral utterances serve to evince sentiment or prescribe action, then substantive differences in normative commitment between speakers do not undermine their disagreement. We can clash in attitude despite our different standards. On the other hand, if moral terms express real properties, it’s hard to see how diverse speakers are connected, in the relevant ways, to the same properties. I examine noncognitivist attempts to make sense of disagreement, and I argue that they fail. The noncognitivist (or expressivist) is obliged to provide an account of the ii mental states at work in moral discourse. Either this account fails to identify a distinct species of moral evaluation, or it cannot provide for genuine incompatibility between competing moral judgments, or it collapses into circularity. Thus, one of the most important motivations for noncognitivist accounts is undermined. I show how naturalistic moral realism can be defended from popular arguments that challenge its ability to make sense of univocity. This criticism, most famously associated with R.M. Hare, has been revived in recent work by Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons. I develop three objections to their so-called ‘Moral Twin Earth’ argument and conclude that it has no force against moral realism. I then show that naturalistic realism faces a different problem accounting for univocity. The semantic resources that feature prominently in contemporary realist accounts are unable to save shared meaning. This is because the path of moral inquiry is underdetermined: there is no fact of the matter about the referents of speakers’ terms. I argue that common realistic appeals to the resolution of moral dispute are not sufficient, because they fail to note a distinction between different readings of the convergence claim. The most plausible ways of understanding that claim are of no help to the realist’s semantic requirements. Finally, I consider a rejoinder suggested by recent work in the philosophy of language. Though not compatible with realism’s moral semantics, this rejoinder suggests that moral and non-moral language are on a par. I offer some reasons for doubting this claim and suggest that moralizing poses unique interpretive challenges. iii Dedicated to my mother and the memory of my father iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my adviser, Justin D’Arms. I owe him a great intellectual debt for his philosophical acumen and his encouragement. He has provided an exemplary model of how to do philosophy, and this project has improved immeasurably under his guidance. I thank Don Hubin. Since the very beginning of my graduate career, Don has provided philosophical insight, sharp criticism, and good cheer. I thank Dan Farrell. Dan is a superb philosophical interlocutor, and I have benefited from his deep understanding of moral theory and his kindness in offering it. I thank William Taschek for countless discussions of all sorts of philosophical issues, for healthy skepticism, and for good- natured chiding. I owe a special debt to Nick Sturgeon. Nick’s enormous generosity, both personal and professional, has been a great help over the last few years. I am grateful for this, and for his lucid, insightful comments and discussions. I am grateful for the friendship and encouragement of many of my fellow graduate students, particularly Andrew Arlig, Jack Arnold, Sondra Bacharach, Emily Beck, Zac Cogley, Julian Cole, Roy Cook, David Eng, Lee Franklin, Rick Groshong, Carol Hay, Eric Heining, John Jakala, Nick Jones, Jose Martin, William Melanson, Ryan Nichols, Brian Stone, and Cathal Woods. I am particularly indebted to Jon Cogburn and Tyler Hower for their intellectual and moral support. I thank Pamela Hieronymi and v Julie Tannenbaum for their kindness and for their friendly disdain toward my philosophical outlook. I thank Amy Ball, Eben Friedman, Bill and Traci Lepicki, David Levy, Maureen Neary, and Joe Pirone, for their encouragement and understanding. I am grateful to my early teachers, particularly Bill and Stacey Edgar, Dennis Bradford, and Walt Soffer. I am particularly indebted to George Mickus, who first inspired me to study philosophy. Finally, I thank Kelly Ball for her support and tolerance. Without her involvement, this project might have been finished earlier, or not at all. vi VITA December 22, 1972………………………Born—Queens, New York 1994………………………………………BA, Philosophy and English, SUNY-Geneseo 1999………………………………………MA, Philosophy, The Ohio State University 1997-2003………………………………..Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 2003-present…………………….………..Instructor, Franklin and Marshall College PUBLICATIONS 1. “Return to Moral Twin Earth,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 32(2): 207- 240. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Philosophy vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract................................................................................................................................ii Dedication...........................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments................................................................................................................v Vita....................................................................................................................................vii Chapters: 1. Introduction.....................................................................................................................1 2. The Failure of Expressivism...........................................................................................7 2.1 Two arguments involving disagreement..................................................................7 2.2 Ogden and Richards.................................................................................................9 2.3 Duncan-Jones.........................................................................................................11 2.4 Barnes.....................................................................................................................12 2.4.1 Barnes’ second attempt.................................................................................16 2.5 Ayer........................................................................................................................20 2.6 Stevenson................................................................................................................32 2.7 Hare........................................................................................................................58 2.8 Taking Stock...........................................................................................................71 2.9 Gibbard...................................................................................................................76 2.10 Blackburn.............................................................................................................98 2.11 Some Conclusions..............................................................................................128 3. Return to Moral Twin Earth........................................................................................129 3.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................129 3.2 The Moral Twin Earth Argument.........................................................................132 3.3 Copp’s First Response..........................................................................................138 3.4 Copp’s Second Response.....................................................................................140 3.5 Disagreement, Here and Elsewhere......................................................................147 viii 3.6 The Second Argument: Revising Our Intuitions..................................................162 3.7 Preserving (Nonmoral) Disagreement..................................................................170 3.8 Concluding Remarks............................................................................................182 4. Moral Realism’s Semantic Problem...........................................................................184 4.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................184