Internalism and the Frege-Geach Problem

According to the established understanding of the Frege-Geach problem, it is a challenge exclusively for metaethical expressivism. In this paper, I argue that it is much wider in scope: The problem applies generally to views according to which moral sentences express moral judgments entailing that one is for or against something, irrespective of what mental states the judgments consist in. In particular, it applies to motivational internalism about moral judgments. Most noteworthy, it applies to cognitivist internalism according to which moral judgments consist in motivating beliefs. Hence, in order for a metaethical view to evade the Frege-Geach problem, it should avoid stating that moral judgments are motivating

Aesthetic Internalism and two Normative Puzzles

One of the most discussed views in metaethics is Moral Internalism, according to which there is a conceptually necessary connection between moral judgments and motivation to act. Moral Internalism is regarded to yield the prime argument against Moral Cognitivism and for Moral Non-Cognitivism. In this paper, I investigate the significance of the corresponding claim in metaaesthetics. I pursue two lines of argument. First, I argue that Aesthetic Internalism – the view that there is a conceptually necessary connection between aesthetic value judgments and motivation to act – is mistaken. It follows, I maintain, that the most important argument against Aesthetic Cognitivism, and for Aesthetic Non-Cognitivism, is flawed, and that the latter view presumably is incorrect. Second, I argue that considerations with regard to Aesthetic Internalism give rise to two normative puzzles with relevance for the normative domain in general. The most plausible solution to these puzzles entails, I maintain, that we need to revise the established view about normative judgments. Moreover, I propose a novel externalist account of aesthetic value judgments

Moral Reality: A Defence of Moral Realism

The main aim of this thesis is to defend moral realism. In chapter 1, I argue that moral realism is best understood as the view that moral sentences have truth-value, there are moral properties that make some moral sentences true, and moral properties are not reducible to non- moral properties. Realism is contrasted with non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism, which, in brief, deny, and, respectively. In the introductory chapter, it is also argued that there are some prima facie reasons to assume that non-cognitivism and error-theory are erroneous. In chapters 2 and 3, I suggest that the two main forms of reductionism, analytic and synthetic reductionism, are mistaken. In chapter 4, I argue that the considerations in the previous chapters in relation to non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism provide support to moral realism. It is also suggested that these considerations make it plausible to hypothesise that moral properties depend on non- moral properties in a way I refer to as ‘the realist formula’. The realist formula confirms moral realism since it implies that moral properties are not reducible to non- moral properties. In chapters 5, 6 and 7, I argue that moral realism, much owing to the realist formula, is able to explain significant meta-ethical issues regarding moral disagreement, moral reason and moral motivation. Among other things, externalism concerning moral motivation is defended. The explanatory value of moral realism in relation to these meta-ethical issues is taken to suggest that this view is preferable to non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism. Some of the meta-ethical issues discussed in these chapters, particularly moral disagreement and motivation, have been thought to provide support to non-cognitivism and error-theory. I maintain that since realism, unlike reductionism, is able to counter these arguments, it justifies us in upholding the view that moral sentences have truth-value and the view that there are moral properties. In chapter 8, various objections against realism with regard to the dependence of moral properties on non- moral properties are responded to. In chapter 9, I consider an influential argument to the effect that moral properties are not involved in causal explanations. I maintain that this argument fails and that it therefore is reasonable to assume that moral properties are natural properties. However, the discussions in chapters 8 and 9 also suggest that moral realism might face problems that cannot be thoroughly discussed in this thesi

A Dual Aspect Account of Moral Language

It is often observed in metaethics that moral language displays a certain duality in as much as it seems to concern both objective facts in the world and subjective attitudes that move to action. In this paper, I defend The Dual Aspect Account which is intended to capture this duality: A person’s utterance of a sentence according to which φing has a moral characteristic, such as “φing is wrong,” conveys two things: The sentence expresses, in virtue of its conventional meaning, the belief that φing has a moral property, and the utterance of the sentence carries a generalized conversational implicature to the effect that the person in question has an action-guiding attitude in relation to φing. This account has significant advantages over competing views: (i) As it is purely cognitivist, it does not have the difficulties of expressivism and various ecumenical positions. (ii) Yet, in spite of this, it can explain the close, “meaning-like,” connection between moral language and attitudes. (iii) In contrast to other pragmatic accounts, it is compatible with any relevant cognitivist view. (iv) It does not rest on a contentious pragmatic notion, such as conventional implicature. (v) It does not imply that utterances of complex moral sentences, such as conditionals, convey attitudes. In addition, the generalized implicature in question is fully calculable and cancellabl

A Structural Disanalogy between Aesthetic and Ethical Value Judgements

It is often suggested that aesthetic and ethical value judgements are similar in such a way that they should be analysed in analogous manners. In this paper, I argue that the two types of judgements share four important features concerning disagreement, motivation, categoricity, and argumentation. This, I maintain, helps to explain why many philosophers have thought that aesthetic and ethical value judgements can be analysed in accordance with the same dispositional scheme which corresponds to the analogy between secondary qualities and values. However, I argue that aesthetic and ethical value judgements differ as regards their fundamental structures. This scheme is mistaken as regards ethical value judgements, but it is able to account for aesthetic value judgements. This implies that aesthetic value judgements are autonomous in relation to ethical value judements and that aestheticians, not moral philosophers, are the true heirs of this renowned analog

Moral blame and rational criticism

A central issue in practical philosophy concerns the relation between moral blameworthiness and normative reasons. As there has been little of direct exchange between the debate on reasons and the debate on blameworthiness, this topic has not received the attention it deserves. In this paper, I consider two notions about blameworthiness and reasons that are fundamental in respective field. The two notions might seem incontrovertible when considered individually, but I argue that they together entail claims that are highly contentious. In particular, I maintain that they entail unreasonable and contradictory claims since the practices of moral blame and rational criticism diverge with regard to three dimensions: justification, response, and function. Thus, we need to give up one of the principal notions. The solutions to this puzzle suggest that the connection between reasons and rationality is weaker than standardly presumed in metaethics

Particularism and Supervenience

One of our most fundamental notions of morality is that in so far as objects have moral properties, they have non-moral properties that make them have moral properties. Similarly, objects have moral properties in virtue of or because of having non-moral properties, and moral properties depend on non-moral properties. In ethics it has generally been assumed that this relation can be accounted for by the supervenience of moral properties on non-moral properties. However, this assumption is put into doubt by an influential view in contemporary ethics: particularism. Thus, one of particularism’s most important implications is thought to be that supervenience is incapable of accounting for the notion that non-moral properties make objects havemoral properties. At least, this iswhat Jonathan Dancy, the leading proponent of particularism, argues in his recent book Ethics Without Principles, and elsewhere. In the present paper, I defend supervenience against this challenge. That is, I argue that particularism does not threaten the ability of supervenience to account for the notion that non-moral properties make objects have moral properties. While doing so, I hope to contribute to our understanding of what is involved in this notion. In the next section, I consider a general argument put forward by Dancy against supervenience and criticize his alternative, resultance. In Section 3, I develop a version of supervenience that I call Specific Moral Supervenience, SMS, and which I think avoids Dancy’s argument. There are basically two conceptions of particularism: what is known as ‘holism’ and the contention that there are no true moral principles. In Section 4, I argue that the view that SMS provides a basis for an account of the notion that non-moral properties make objects have moral properties is compatible with the pertinent version of holism. However, in Section 5 we see that SMS is incompatible with the view that there are no true moral principles. Particularists find support for this view in the distinction between non-moral properties that make objects have moral properties and so-called enablers. On Dancy’s conception of this distinction, it follows that SMS does not refer to non-moral properties that make objects have moral properties and that there are no true moral principles of the relevant kind. In Sections 6 and 7, I defend SMS against these two consequences. In doing so, I distinguish two uses of ‘make’ and provide a pragmatic account of the distinction between non-moral properties that make objects have moral properties and enablers

An Internalist Dilemma—and an Externalist Solution

In this paper, I argue that internalism about moral judgments and motivation faces a dilemma. On the one hand, a strong version of internalism is able to explain our conception of the connection between moral language and motivation, but fails to account for the notion that people who suffer from certain mental conditions need not be accordingly motivated. On the other hand, a weaker form of internalism avoids this difficulty, but fails to explain the mentioned conception concerning moral language and motivation. Moreover, I argue that externalism in conjunction with a pragmatic claim which employs Grice’s concept of generalized conversational implicature is able to account for both these conceptions and that it consequently avoids the internalist dilemma. Thus, there is reason to think that this view is preferable to internalism

Expressivism and Dispositional Desires

According to a persistent objection against metaethical expressivism, this view is committed to a strong version of internalism which is unable to account for cases where a person’s moral judgment and motivation come apart. Recently, leading expressivists have argued that they can meet this objection by maintaining that moral judgments consist in non-cognitive states that motivate in normal conditions. In this paper, it is maintained that an important dimension of internalism has, on the whole, gone unnoticed: Internalist claims vary depending on whether moral judgments and motivation are understood as dispositional states or occurrent states. This variation can be invoked in an argument showing that expressivists are indeed committed to versions of internalism that make it impossible to account for cases in which moral judgment and motivation diverge