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A Davidsonian Theory of Evaluative Judgment

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Donald Davidson on Action, Mind and Value

Part of the book series: Logic in Asia: Studia Logica Library ((LIAA))

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Abstract

It is acknowledged that the debate between internalism and externalism is closely related to the debate between cognitivism and non-cognitivism regarding evaluative judgment. As the Humean theory of motivation is the dominant view, most philosophers endorse the idea that desire is necessary for motivation. It follows that the internalist usually appeals to non-cognitivism to argue for internalism, because if evaluative judgments express/are desires, then it seems that evaluative judgments must motivate. But then evaluative judgments cannot be true or false, for desires lack cognitive contents. Such a view seems to be counterintuitive, as we tend to think of evaluative judgments as having cognitive contents. The aim of this paper is to settle this issue by reconstructing a Davidsonian theory of evaluative judgment. I will argue that, following Davidson, by taking evaluative attitudes as conative propositional attitudes, we will be able to see how evaluative judgments can be both necessarily motivating and truth-apt.

This chapter is in its final form and it is not submitted for publication anywhere else.

This paper was finished while the author was a visiting scholar at the Department of Philosophy and Research Centre for Agency, Values, and Ethics (CAVE), Macquarie University, from August 2018 to August 2019 and funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, under the Postdoctoral Research Abroad Program (MOST: 107-2917-I-564-002-A1).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Michael Smith is probably the most prominent exception in contemporary philosophy. See Smith (1994).

  2. 2.

    Leading ideas of expressivism in the twentieth century can be found in Ayer (1946), Blackburn (1984), and Gibbard (1990).

  3. 3.

    Joyce (2002).

  4. 4.

    Geach develops this objection with an idea inspired by Frege. See Geach (1965).

  5. 5.

    See also Sinnott-Armstrong (1993: 209–302).

  6. 6.

    See Gibbard (1990), Blackburn (1993), and Schroeder (2008) for the expressivist semantics projects.

  7. 7.

    Joyce (2002: 337–339). See also Ridge (2006).

  8. 8.

    Joyce (2002: 343).

  9. 9.

    What we have been concerned with is the connection between evaluative judgment and motivation. Analytically, there are two possibilities. Either the connection holds between judging evaluatively and motivation or it holds between evaluation and motivation. The first sort of internalism is usually called judgment internalism, as we have seen, which states the necessary connection between genuine evaluative expressions, thoughts, or convictions and motivation. It is the sort of view about the nature of evaluative thought or language. The second sort of internalism has the name of existence internalism, as Stephen Darwall labels it, which makes a metaphysical claim about the necessary connection between evaluative facts or truths and motivation. See Darwall (1992, 1995). Although what Darwall talks about are normativity and ethical or normative judgments, the characterization applies to evaluative judgment as well.

  10. 10.

    See introduction of Björnsson et al. (2015) and Svavarsdóttir (2006).

  11. 11.

    Davidson (1995a, b: 9).

  12. 12.

    For an argument for this point, see Stroud (2003).

  13. 13.

    Davidson (1984), 20.

  14. 14.

    Davidson (1984: 19).

  15. 15.

    See Davidson (1984: 24) for his use of these terms.

  16. 16.

    For further discussions, see also Bricke (2012).

  17. 17.

    Davidson (1984: 25).

  18. 18.

    Davidson (1984: 25–6).

  19. 19.

    For the cognitivist view that regards moral judgments as expressions of beliefs, see, for example, Smith (1994), and Brink (1997) For the cognitivist discussion without the use of expression, see Svavarsdóttir (1999), and Hills (2015).

  20. 20.

    See Davidson (1984, 1985).

  21. 21.

    Davidson (1984: 35).

  22. 22.

    See also Myers (2004, 2013).

  23. 23.

    For this point, see Davidson (1984, 1986, 1980).

  24. 24.

    Davidson (1986: 71).

  25. 25.

    For more discussions on evaluative attitudes, see also Preyer (2011).

  26. 26.

    Davidson (1984: 37).

  27. 27.

    Davidson (1984: 26). Davidson argues for this point in Davidson (1980) as well, see especially 158–159.

  28. 28.

    Davidson (1984: 27).

  29. 29.

    Davidson (2000: 54–55).

  30. 30.

    Davidson (2000: 56).

  31. 31.

    Davidson (1995a, b: 52).

  32. 32.

    Davidson argues for this point in Davidson (1995a, b).

  33. 33.

    Here’s Davidson’s suggestion on objectivity: “A judgment is objective if it is true or false, or possibly neither, but its truth value (true, false or neither) is fixed: its truth value is independent of who makes the judgment, and of the society or period in which the thinker lives. The truth value of a judgment depends on just two things: the facts, and the contents of the judgment, the proposition being judged”. Davidson (1995a, b: 42).

  34. 34.

    This is fundamentally different from the view that values are objective because they are what we agree on. See Davidson (1995a, b: 51).

  35. 35.

    Davidson (1995a, b: 47), see also Davidson (2000, 1986).

  36. 36.

    Davidson (1995a, b: 50). One might have the worry that Davidson’s view commits to notorious subjectivism, and thus, as is well known, easily leads to relativism. But that is not true. Davidson thinks that making a judgment entails allowing the gap between what is judged to be good and what is actually good, and thus, values are objective in the sense that evaluative judgments have objective truth values. Actually, Davidson’s argument for evaluative judgment can be taken as a challenge to moral relativism. For further discussion about how it goes and the relativist replies, see (Gowans 2016) and (Prinz 2007).

  37. 37.

    For counter-examples, see (Stocker 1979).

  38. 38.

    Sergio Tenebaum thinks that Davidson commits to the GG thesis in his account of akrasia. See Tenenbaum (2007).

  39. 39.

    Kant (1997), Ak5: 58–9.

  40. 40.

    See Velleman (2000: 103–104).

  41. 41.

    See Dunn (2006: 101).

  42. 42.

    Davidson (1963: 4).

  43. 43.

    For Davidson, pro-attitudes include: “desires, wantings, urges, promptings, and a great variety of moral view, aesthetic principles, economic prejudices, social conventions, and public and private goals and values in so far as these can be interpreted as attitudes of an agent directed towards actions of a certain kind. The word ‘attitude’ does yeoman service here, for it must cover not only permanent character traits that show themselves in a lifetime of behaviour, like love of children or a taste for loud company, but also the most passing fancy that prompts a unique action, like a sudden desire to touch a woman’s elbow”. Davidson (1963: 4).

  44. 44.

    See Davidson (1978: 86). The same point is made implicitly in Davidson (1970) as well.

  45. 45.

    Davidson (2000: 55).

  46. 46.

    See Tenenbaum (2007, 2010), and Hurley (2002). Both Tenenbaum and Hurley find the apparent inconsistency between Davidson’s claim of the truth-aptness of evaluative judgment and his insistence of internalism. This drives them to develop their own approaches to solve the problem.

  47. 47.

    See Arpaly (2000: 512).

  48. 48.

    Dunn (1987).

  49. 49.

    Davidson (1978: 99).

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  1. Independent Scholar, Sydney, Australia

    Ya-Ting Chang

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  1. National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Syraya Chin-Mu Yang

  2. York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Robert H. Myers

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Chang, YT. (2021). A Davidsonian Theory of Evaluative Judgment. In: Yang, S.CM., Myers, R.H. (eds) Donald Davidson on Action, Mind and Value. Logic in Asia: Studia Logica Library. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7230-2_4

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