Archimedean Metaethics Defended

Abstract

We sometimes say our moral claims are ''objectively true,'' or are ''right, even if nobody believes it.'' These additional claims are often taken to be staking out metaethical positions, representative of a certain kind of theorizing about morality that ''steps outside'' the practice in order to comment on its status. Ronald Dworkin has argued that skepticism about these claims so understood is not tenable because it is impossible to step outside such practices. I show that externally skeptical metaethical theory can withstand his attacks, thereby defending the possibility of this kind of metatheoretical method and showing that the additional objectivity claims still make sense as external claims. Four interpretations of the additional objectivity claims can still be understood externally: as secondary properties, as arguing for some form of causal correspondence, as explaining error, and under Blackburn's expressivism. In the end, Dworkin's argument can be turned against itself.

In Defense of Anti‐Archimedean Moral Realism: A Response to Recent Critics

“…He describes this view in the following manner:

SQ: Moral properties consist only in actions' propensity to elicit a specific reaction in us. (Ehrenberg , 519)

According to this version of secondary quality theory, facts about how humans react to certain types of actions and states of affairs are constitutive of moral facts. Moral properties are relational properties insofar as the moral wrongness of an action or state of affairs is defined in terms of its propensity to cause a specific reaction in humans.…”

“…SQ: Moral properties consist only in actions' propensity to elicit a specific reaction in us. (Ehrenberg , 519)…”

“…Ehrenberg's argument that SQ does not need to be understood as a moral standard turns on the claim that Dworkin has only shown that SQ can be interpreted as a moral claim, not that it has to be understood this way: “To call moral properties secondary may be substantive and controversial, since others will say that they are not secondary, but Dworkin has not given us any reason why this controversy has to be a moral one. I certainly would not think someone was engaging in a dereliction of her moral duty just for making this claim” (Ehrenberg , 520). This argument relies on a misinterpretation of the anti‐archimedean thesis.…”

“…Dworkin's arguments have been criticized from many directions (see, e.g., Blackburn , Ehrenberg , McPherson , and Pigden ). It is my own opinion that some of these criticisms succeed, and that others fail.…”

Developing a Post-Prior Taxonomy of Ethical Sentences

“…The most common kind of controversy arises in discussions over whether or not particular metaethical theories can be understood as being ethically neutral (see, for examples, Dworkin 1996;Dreier 2002;Fantl 2006;Ehrenberg 2008;McPherson 2008;Kramer 2009;Enoch 2010). Philosophers have also relied on particular taxonomies in the ongoing debate about the logical autonomy of ethics (see especially Karmo 1988;Pigden 1989;Nelson 1995Nelson , 2007Maitzen 1998Maitzen , 2008Hill 2008;Restall and Russell 2010).…”