Non-Cognitivism and the Classification Account of Moral Uncertainty

Eriksson, John; Olinder, Ragnar Francén

doi:10.1080/00048402.2016.1149199

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…Belief-Desire Reduction: A wide variety of propositional attitudes have a functional 4 For noncognitivist accounts of belief, see Gibbard (1990Gibbard ( , 2003; Köhler (2013); Björnsson and McPherson (2014). For noncognitivist theories of credence, see Sepielli (2012); Eriksson and Olinder (2016); Ridge (2018). For noncognitivist takes on knowledge, see Blackburn (1996); Gibbard (2003: chp.11).…”

Section: The Game Planmentioning

confidence: 99%

A solution to the many attitudes problem

Beddor

2019

Philos Stud

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According to noncognitivism, normative beliefs are just desire-like attitudes. While noncognitivists have devoted great e ort to explaining the nature of normative belief, they have said little about all of the other attitudes we take towards normative matters. Many of us desire to do the right thing. We sometimes wonder whether our conduct is morally permissible; we hope that it is, and occasionally fear that it is not. This gives rise to what Schroeder calls the 'Many Attitudes Problem': the problem of developing a plausible noncognitivist account of the full range of attitudes that we take towards normative matters. This paper explores the problem and proposes a solution.

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Section: The Game Planmentioning

confidence: 99%

A solution to the many attitudes problem

Beddor

2019

Philos Stud

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“…Finally, a more recent approach in effect treats normative uncertainty as (primarily) like the kind of ambivalence we have when applying a semantically indeterminate predicate to a borderline case. Here I have in mind the account developed by Eriksson and Olinder (2016). The version of expressivism they defend is best understood as a kind of hybrid or "Ecumenical" Expressivism, with both a non-cognitive and a descriptive element.…”

Section: Existing Expressivist Theories Of Normative Credences and Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

Normative certitude for expressivists

Ridge

2018

Synthese

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Quasi-realists aspire to accommodate core features of ordinary normative thought and discourse in an expressivist framework. One apparent such feature is that we can be more or less confident in our normative judgments-they vary in credence. Michael Smith has argued that quasi-realists cannot plausibly accommodate these distinctions simply because they understand normative judgments as desires, but desires lack the structure needed to distinguish these three features. Existing attempts to meet Smith's challenge have accepted Smith's presupposition that the way to meet the challenge is to show that normative judgments have more structure than they initially seem to have. I argue that accepting this presupposition is accepting too much. The orthodox view of certitude, insofar as there is one, understands certitude very roughly in terms of counterfactual betting behaviour. Counterfactual betting behaviour, though, is not in any useful sense a structural feature of a given judgment. It is rather a more holistic feature of a given agent's cognitive system. Insofar as it can meet the other challenges it faces, quasi-realism can characterize credences in terms of counterfactual betting behaviour and effectively say exactly what many realists will want to say about credences, thus meeting Smith's challenge much more directly. Keywords Expressivism • Quasi-realism • Decision theory • Credence • Belief • Normativity • Metaethics Quasi-realists aspire to accommodate core features of ordinary normative thought in an expressivist framework. One such feature is that people can be more or less confident in their normative judgments. I am more certain that pain is bad than I am that white lies are permissible. A plausible quasi-realist account of normative credence should follow ordinary practice and distinguish relative degrees of confidence (credences) from how valuable a given judgment takes an object of evaluation to be (importance). It should also distinguish both of these from the stability of the judgment in the face of further information and reflection (robustness). Michael Smith B Michael Ridge

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“…Those who prefer some alternative expressivist treatment of moral credences can still help themselves to the Credal Analysis in order to solve the Fallibility Problem. For examples of alternative treatments, seeEriksson and Olinder (2016); Ridge (forthcoming).12Mill (1861): chp. V, par.…”

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confidence: 99%

Fallibility for Expressivists

Beddor

2020

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

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Quasi-realists face the challenge of providing a plausible analysis of acknowledgments of moral fallibility (e.g., I believe that lying is wrong, but I might be mistaken). This paper develops a new analysis of these acknowledgments, according to which they express moral uncertainty. After advertising the advantages of this analysis, I take up the question of how to understand moral uncertainty in expressivist terms. 1 The Challenge According to moral expressivism, the function of moral discourse is not to describe the world. Rather, it's to express desire-like attitudes. The main challenge for expressivism comes from the fact that moral discourse behaves much like descriptive discourse. Expressivists in the quasi-realist tradition seek to meet this challenge: they aim to reconcile expressivism with the realist trappings of moral language. Can this goal be achieved? In recent years, some authors have claimed that quasirealists are unable to account for acknowledgments of moral fallibility (Egan 2007; Köhler 2015). An example: Ava has just completed a term paper arguing that eating meat is morally wrong. She's con dent that her thesis is true. Still, she admits that it's possible that her thesis is mistaken. Ethics is hard, and she's aware that many smart people disagree with her. She is thus inclined to say things like: (1) a. I believe eating meat is wrong. b. But I might be mistaken. 1 How should we understand these acknowledgments, if moral beliefs are just desire-like states? Call this 'The Fallibility Challenge. ' 1 Beddor and Goldstein (2018) call these conjunctions 'concessive belief attributions' based on their resemblance to concessive knowledge attributions (sentences of the form, ⌜I know φ, but I might be mistaken⌝). Interestingly, while such CKAs are typically judged infelicitous, their belief-involving counterparts sound perfectly natural.

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Non-Cognitivism and the Classification Account of Moral Uncertainty

Cited by 15 publications

References 10 publications

A solution to the many attitudes problem

A solution to the many attitudes problem

Normative certitude for expressivists

Fallibility for Expressivists

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