| | Some problems with Huemer's efforts ...
In the Introduction of the Analytical Contents link, (presumably) Huemer states that there is a case for exactly 5 metaethical theories:
1.3 Five metaethical theories
There are exactly five metaethical theories: non-cognitivism, subjectivism, nihilism, naturalism, and intuitionism.
Here's the list again:
1. non-cognitivism
2. subjectivism
3. nihilism
4. naturalism
5. intuitionism
He then goes on to describe 4 alternative metaethical theories:
1. non-cognitivism
2. subjectivism
3. reductionism
4. intuitionism
How come the lists aren't commensurate? Where did nihilism and naturalism go? Were they supposed to be subsumed by "reductionism"? Let's explore Huemer's entries under reductionism -- to look for philosophical error ...
4.1 What is reductionism?
Reductionists believe (i) that what it is for a thing to be good can be explained using non-evaluative expressions, and (ii) that we know moral truths on the basis of observation.
Belief (i) is not necessarily true -- though it gets so much mileage in the realm of professional philosophy. Some facts have inherent value. In stating propositions about facts with inherent value, you can get to an evaluative conclusion. Perhaps a sorites is, or several syllogisms, strung together -- but it is not necessarily true that "what it is for a thing to be good can be explained using non-evaluative expression."
4.3 The is-ought gap
4.3.1 Hume’s Law: an initial statement
It is impossible to validly deduce an evaluative statement from non-evaluative premises.
Big deal (see above).
*4.3.3 Geach’s challenge
Geach’s attempted counter-example fails because it is invalid and one of its premises is evaluative.
But it's "okay" for one premise to be evaluative (see above) -- one premise can talk about that which true of the world; and the other premise can talk about that which is true of our relation to the world. There's no actual invalidity in that. It's merely a tragedy of convention.
4.4.1 Can moral facts be known by observation?
Even if moral properties are reducible, it would be fallacious to infer that we can know moral truths by observation. We cannot observe that a thing is good, because there is no distinctive way that good things look, sound, smell, taste, or feel.
Tell that to someone who's being tortured to death. Ask them if there is something better -- something that they "know" is better (than being tortured to death); something "distinctively" different (than being tortured to death). Ask them if there is a way that the better things "look, sound, smell, taste, or feel."
4.4.2 Can moral facts be known by inference to the best explanation?
Even if some moral facts are explanatory, we cannot know moral truths by inference to the best explanation, because moral facts do not explain any observations that could not be explained as well by non-moral facts.
This is an equivocation of "explanation" with "understanding" -- a wrong-headed, hyper-intellectualization of morality, per se. As an example, think about explaining color to a blind man -- and you will see that there's more to moral truths than mere intellectualism and accurate explanation. The reason that blind men won't ever "get" the explanation (no matter how well it is given to them) is that they have to have the experience of sight -- in order to understand the concept of color. In the same way, moral truths are things which we have all experienced -- even if the experience was just a bully stealing the milk from your pre-school lunch. Color couldn't be successfully explained to a blind man and, for the same reason, morality couldn't be explained to a computer.
*4.4.3 Can moral claims be tested?
Moral theories do not generate any testable predictions without relying either on ad hoc posits or on the assumption that conscious beings have some independent access to moral truths.
So what? Wow. Geez. You mean we'd have to "rely" on the "assumption" that conscious beings have some independent access to moral truths??? Preposterous!!! Because it has clearly been "known" for centuries that this is impossible, right? A "proper" assumption is to take the opposite conclusion (that beings have NO such access), right? Let me ask this poignant question: What -- besides breaking with "traditional thought" -- leads to the one assumption over the other? No answer? Just as I thought.
4.5 The argument from radical dissimilarity
The simplest argument against reductionism is that moral properties just seem, on their face, radically different from natural properties.
Only when human welfare is thought of as "unnatural."
4.6 Explaining moral beliefs
Reductionist accounts of how moral beliefs might be justified fail to apply to nearly anyone’s actual beliefs.
Social metaphysics. Social metaphysics. Social metaphysics. Enough of that 'professional philosopher' crap, already.
I'll post on ethical intuitionism later. For now, it was important to highlight the "problems" that Huemer has regarding the "problems" of alternative positions.
Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/06, 1:18pm)
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