Hughes Prog: Quasi-Realism/Response-Dependence
Recall the question: how are subjectivist views really any different from error theoretic accounts? The worry, of course, is just that if, for example, it is essential to a thing bearing a value that we respond -- or are disposed to respond -- to it, then our evaluative states are defective.
Now I was asked by the Daily Akratic whether or not I was ashamed, as a long-time student at the Michigan Philosophy Department, to find myself wondering about this. Daily Akratic's question barely warrants explanation, since we are all Michiganites, but, in case grandma is reading, a little explanation...
[If you're not grandma, feel free to skip ahead.]
Explanation for Grandma: Michigan is a hotbed of moral anti-realism, which is to say, a hotbed of subtle attempts to defeat the appearance (google Harman and Mackie) that our moral attitudes are in error. Allan Gibbard, were he to read my blog (!), would no doubt shake his head with mild disappointment.
Gibbard, like Simon Blackburn, advocates what has been called a quasi-realist position regarding moral attitudes. To whit: when we engage in moral thinking -- thinking for example that something is forbidden, or that guilt is warranted -- our thinking is not truth-apt. That is, moral judgment is not like belief in being susceptible to truth or falsity, nor (I'd guess) does it aspire to knowledge. So the appearance of error is explained away with the following move: the moral attitudes are not so much as candidates for epistemic error. They can't lose 'cause they ain't playing.
The standard response to the quasi-realist position is to invoke the Frege-Geach problem. Moral judgements embed in other judgments as if they were truth-apt. For example: Just as I can believe that 2+2 = 5, I can believe that murder is wrong. Also, I can believe that it is true that murder is wrong. Gibbard has some (I trust) clever counter-response involving states of hyper-decision. Whatever. I am inclined to make the Moore maneuver on responses to the Frege-Geach problem. I am dogmatically confident that something is wrong with all of that.
End Explanation for Grandma.
My main beef with quasi-realism comes from its apparent conflict with my own experience of evaluating. Evaluative states just seem intentional. I say: Save the appearances! ...even (a bit weirdly) at the cost of error theory. So, while Gibbard claims that moral attitudes ain't playing the game and therefore cannot lose, I claim that they are playing the game.
So am I ashamed to be expressing worries about subjectivist theories? Well... a little, yes. But, insofar as I am committed to a representationalist conception of most everything, I can start thinking more about the problems for such views... and ignore the Gibbardian subtlies. What do you think? So, ignore quasi-realism for the time being and focus on subjectivist theories.
Now I was asked by the Daily Akratic whether or not I was ashamed, as a long-time student at the Michigan Philosophy Department, to find myself wondering about this. Daily Akratic's question barely warrants explanation, since we are all Michiganites, but, in case grandma is reading, a little explanation...
[If you're not grandma, feel free to skip ahead.]
Explanation for Grandma: Michigan is a hotbed of moral anti-realism, which is to say, a hotbed of subtle attempts to defeat the appearance (google Harman and Mackie) that our moral attitudes are in error. Allan Gibbard, were he to read my blog (!), would no doubt shake his head with mild disappointment.
Gibbard, like Simon Blackburn, advocates what has been called a quasi-realist position regarding moral attitudes. To whit: when we engage in moral thinking -- thinking for example that something is forbidden, or that guilt is warranted -- our thinking is not truth-apt. That is, moral judgment is not like belief in being susceptible to truth or falsity, nor (I'd guess) does it aspire to knowledge. So the appearance of error is explained away with the following move: the moral attitudes are not so much as candidates for epistemic error. They can't lose 'cause they ain't playing.
The standard response to the quasi-realist position is to invoke the Frege-Geach problem. Moral judgements embed in other judgments as if they were truth-apt. For example: Just as I can believe that 2+2 = 5, I can believe that murder is wrong. Also, I can believe that it is true that murder is wrong. Gibbard has some (I trust) clever counter-response involving states of hyper-decision. Whatever. I am inclined to make the Moore maneuver on responses to the Frege-Geach problem. I am dogmatically confident that something is wrong with all of that.
End Explanation for Grandma.
My main beef with quasi-realism comes from its apparent conflict with my own experience of evaluating. Evaluative states just seem intentional. I say: Save the appearances! ...even (a bit weirdly) at the cost of error theory. So, while Gibbard claims that moral attitudes ain't playing the game and therefore cannot lose, I claim that they are playing the game.
So am I ashamed to be expressing worries about subjectivist theories? Well... a little, yes. But, insofar as I am committed to a representationalist conception of most everything, I can start thinking more about the problems for such views... and ignore the Gibbardian subtlies. What do you think? So, ignore quasi-realism for the time being and focus on subjectivist theories.
posted by Idris at 1:23 PM
2 Comments:
RE:
"Gibbard has some (I trust) clever counter-response involving states of hyper-decision. Whatever. I am inclined to make the Moore maneuver on responses to the Frege-Geach problem. I am dogmatically confident that something is wrong with all of that."
'WHATEVER?' That is your response to Gibbard?
And what the hell does 'dogmatically confident' mean? That is like saying, 'I am ideologically certain that this is the case...'
Oh God, this is all so wrong. So wrong it hurts my malignant soul. ;)
And anyway, what's the deal with labelling the 'ideal standpoint' approach to morality as a kind of subjectivism? (You say this in your earlier post.)
Dude -- it is a form of REALISM. Get a grip.
Anyway, contrary to what that slug CityNinja claims (Who is that person anyway? Is it Jackie?), blogs promote socializing and drinking. I mean, dude, I SO want to go for some beer and argue with you now. ;)
Pax. Come out to SF soon.
Daily Akratic:
Mostly my blog is about torturing you.
Seriously though, I take it that there are two moves to avoid the conclusion that we should give up on valuing. The first consists in quasi-realism. The second consists in a kind of relativism -- which differs from quasi-realism in claiming that evaluative states are candidates for truth. The best candidate for a plausible relativism would be something along the lines of ideal-observer theory.
My "Whatever" to Gibbard is not supposed to justify rejecting his view. Instead it registers what I take to be a fairly common epistemic position: someone has a complicated reason for advocating a view you find yourself opposed to. Imagine, for example, Daily Akratic, that someone has a long proof that God exists. Since God doesn't exist, you believe, there must be something wrong with the argument. It can be permissible, I think, to choose to proceed without addressing the argument in any substantive way. ...especially, if you have other reasons for atheism. Also: remember what it was like arguing with Charles Goodman, who skillfully argued that people don't exist. It seemed reasonable to respond (even if only under your breath: "Whatever, dude").
Responding dogmatically to Charles did leave me with a kind of epistemic anxiety, but I have to admit a fairly low-level one.
The problem is that life is short and Gibbard's stuff about the Frege-Geach problem is difficult.
So I propose moving on a bit... leapfroging the Japanese garrisons in South-East Asia, as it were.
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