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Options for Hybrid Expressivism

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Abstract

In contemporary metaethics, various versions of hybrid expressivism have been proposed according to which moral sentences express both non-cognitive attitudes and beliefs. One important advantage with such positions, its proponents argue, is that they, in contrast to pure expressivism, have a straightforward way of avoiding the Frege-Geach problem. In this paper, I provide a systematic examination of different versions of hybrid expressivism with particular regard to how they are assumed to evade this problem. The major conclusion is that none of these views succeeds to provide both a fully satisfying interpretation of moral sentences and a convincing response to the Frege-Geach problem. I end by briefly considering alternative hybrid views that employ the notion of conventional or conversational implicature.

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Notes

  1. Henceforth I will understand ‘attitude’ as an action-guiding non-cognitive attitude, e.g., desire.

  2. The claim that a sentence expresses a mental state in virtue of its meaning can be conceived of in different manners. On one view, a sentence expresses the mental state a person needs to be in, in order for it to be semantically permissible for her to assert, or accept, it. See Schroeder (2008): Ch. 2. Cf. Ridge (2003): 563–574. For alternatives, see e.g., Gibbard (2003): Ch. 3; Boisvert (2008): 169–203, and Ridge (2014): 108–109. I want to stay neutral as regards whether cognitivism best is formulated to state that moral sentences express propositions or beliefs. Needless to say, ‘express’ would refer to different relations depending on which formulation that is preferred. By ‘belief’ and ‘proposition’ in these formulations I refer to non-deflationary, representational, notions.

  3. According to Michael Ridge’s distinction (Ridge (2006): 302–336), ecumenical cognitivism states that moral sentences are true in so far as the beliefs they express are true, whereas ecumenical expressivism denies this. Although I will focus on ecumenical, or hybrid, expressivism, my arguments apply to ecumenical cognitivism as well.

  4. In particular, we immediately presume this even if we do not have access to any specific information to the effect that she has such an attitude. Cf. Finlay (2004): 212, and Fletcher (forthcoming).

  5. For an overview of different versions of internalism, see Björklund et al. (2012): 123–137.

  6. See e.g., Ridge (2007): 67–70, and Schroeder (2010): 201–205.

  7. See e.g., Sinnott-Armstrong (2000): 677–693, and Schroeder (2010): 47–48, 105–106.

  8. See e.g., Sinnott-Armstrong (2000): 677–693, and Schroeder (2010): 46–54. This is only one of the semantic properties of moral sentences that needs explaining.

  9. Cf. Jackson (1999): 18–37, and Alm (2007): 121–146. See also Ridge (2006): 329–330.

  10. Cf. Schroeder (2009): 267–268. For the same reason, it might also be doubted that the present solution is able to account for other semantic properties of moral sentences.

  11. It should be obvious that, in order to explain a speaker’s moral motivation and actions, hybrid expressivism needs to entail that attitude A makes some sort of reference to property B. However, my discussion is neutral as regards what attitude A and property B exactly consist in. Most importantly, hybrid expressivist views vary as regards whether different speakers use a moral sentence to express the same attitude and the same belief, and whether the belief is fixed by the attitude (Schroeder (2009): 257–309). There are moreover variants of the mentioned options according to which attitude A does not itself have the indicated object, but the fact that a person has attitude A implies that she has another attitude which does have the object in question. According to Teemu Toppinen a moral sentence expresses a higher-order state of being in a complex state involving some attitude and some belief (rather than a particular attitude and a particular belief) (Toppinen (2013): 252–282). I will ignore these complications since they do not affect my arguments.

  12. As pointed out, a version of hybrid expressivism needs to entail that attitude A makes some sort of reference to property B. Moreover, these four options seem to constitute the main alternatives as regards the object of attitude A. It therefore seems reasonable to suggest that any version of hybrid expressivism implies that a moral sentence expresses attitude A towards some object such that the view is vulnerable to some of the difficulties discussed below, even if it is not explicit as regards what this object consists in. It has recently been maintained that moral sentences express certain complex, or abstract, attitudes. Mark Schroeder suggests that a moral sentence expresses a particular relation between some attitude and some belief (as opposed to the view that a moral sentence expresses a particular attitude and a particular belief) (Schroeder (2013): 283–313). As far as I understand, Schroeder’s formulation of this view incorporates important claims from the second option below. In his recent book, Michael Ridge argues that moral sentences express judgments which consist in pairs of normative perspectives (roughly, sets of plans in the form of action-guiding desire-like states in relation to what standards to accept) and beliefs (Ridge (2014): esp. Ch. 4). As far as I see, it is not explicit how the object of the desire-like state should be understood on this view. Ridge’s recent view is quite complex and I am unfortunately not able to discuss it in the present paper.

  13. See also Boisvert (2008): 171–172, 177, 185. Ridge’s original position can also be interpreted in this manner; see e.g., Ridge (2006): 302–336. See also Schroeder (2010): Ch. 10, and Schroeder (2013): 295–297. These authors have different views on a number of issues with relevance for the plausibility of their proposals. For instance, while Boisvert thinks that a moral sentence has a fixed descriptive content, Ridge thinks that it can vary with different speakers. However, these differences are not essential to the present discussion.

  14. For the analogy between pejoratives and moral sentences, see Boisvert (2008): 169–203; Schroeder (2010): Ch. 10; Hay (2013): 450–474, and Schroeder (2013): 295–297. Cf. Copp (2009): 185–189. For an overview of different accounts of pejoratives, see Hom (2010): 164–185. The hybrid expressivist view of pejoratives is highly controversial, but for a recent defence, see Jeshion (2013): 231–259.

  15. According to this view, a person who accepts (4) has an attitude towards all individuals that have a certain property, i.e. being Italian, irrespective of who these individuals are. That is, she need not have any particular beliefs about these particular individuals. Similarly, a person who accepts (1) would have attitude A towards all actions that have a certain property B whatever these actions are. Thus, she need not have identified, or be able to identify, each particular action that has B, which means that she need not have any beliefs about every single existing action that has B.

  16. See Schroeder (2009): 272–275; Schroeder (2010): 197–198, and Schroeder (2013): 295–297. It might be argued that other semantic properties of moral sentences are explainable in similar manners (Schroeder (2010): 198–199).

  17. It might be argued that the fact that a person has attitude A towards all actions which have property B entails that she has a disposition such that, for any action which she believes have B, if she comes to believe that a certain action has B, then she is motivated in a certain manner in relation to the action in question, e.g., motivated to refrain from performing it. (For a slightly different dispositional account, see Boisvert (2008): 178.) However, I do not think an appeal to dispositions would make any difference to my argument. When a person utters (1) we immediately assume that she has a negative attitude towards lying such that she is motivated to refrain from lying, not that she has an attitude in the form of a general disposition to refrain from performing each and every action which has a certain property B.

  18. Cf. Ridge (2007): 67–70, and Ridge (forthcoming).

  19. For a recent defence of unconditional internalism, see Bromwich (forthcoming).

  20. See e.g., Gibbard (2003): 318–319; Blackburn (1998): 61; Björnsson (2002): 334–340, and Eriksson (2014): 253–267. Cf. Strandberg (2012a): 81–91.

  21. See e.g., Korsgaard (1986): 5–25; Smith (1994): Ch. 3, and Wedgwood (2007): 23–26.

  22. See e.g., Hare (1952): Ch. 8; Blackburn (1993): 123, 125–126, and Eriksson (2009): 22–23.

  23. It might perhaps be objected that this does not strictly speak entail that actions having B is the person’s reason to have attitude A towards them. It might be argued that it suffices that she has a certain disposition of the type described earlier (footnote 17). However, it seems plausible to think that it is her reason in so far as she is consciously aware of her moral view, and the second option should be able to account for such cases. Moreover, since the sceptic has become convinced that there is no property B, we should not assume that she needs to have such a disposition.

  24. Cf. Ridge (2007): 56.

  25. Cf. Fletcher (forthcoming).

  26. I am grateful to a reviewer of this journal for very helpful comments on this type of case.

  27. Michael Ridge considers in an early formulation of his view what should be said of a sceptic who accepts the sentence ‘If passive euthanasia is sometimes required then active euthanasia is sometimes required too’ (Ridge (2006): 334). He suggests that we should ‘understand such an agent as taking a stand against the approval of certain sorts of observers—those observers who would simultaneously approve of passive euthanasia but at one and the same time not also approve of active euthanasia’ (Ridge (2006): 335). We need not consider the particular view of what property B consists in on this suggestion. The basic idea is that a complex sentence like (2) expresses a second-order attitude of a certain type, rather than an attitude towards all actions that have a certain property B. However, there is reason to think that defenders of the second option would have difficulties to adopt this suggestion. In Section 4, we saw that a person who accepts (1) and (2) is committed to have the attitude expressed by (3). A person who accepts (1) need presumably not have any second option-order attitude of the mentioned type, whereas a sceptic who accepts (2) need not have any attitude towards all actions that have a certain property B. In other words, on this suggestion it appears that (1) and (2) would express different attitudes. Thus, if the second option employs this suggestion, it would have difficulties to explain validity in the manner described above. Of course, this suggestion might be combined with some other account of validity, but it is not clear what it would consist in.

  28. In his recent book, Ridge argues that ‘an agnostic about morality’ might accept a sentence such as ‘If eating meat is morally wrong, then eating beef is morally wrong’ without accepting any moral norm. The reason is that on his present view, a moral sentence expresses a normative perspective which involves a policy against accepting certain kinds of moral standards. On this view, a person who accepts the sentence is committed not to accept any moral standard which simultaneously permits eating meat but does not condemn eating beef. Ridge argues that it would be incoherent to assert ‘If eating meat is morally wrong then eating beef is morally wrong—not that I have any objection to moral standards which forbid eating meat but do not forbid eating beef’ (Ridge (2014): 113). However, it is not entirely clear why it should not be possible to imagine a sceptic who accepts the first sentence but refuses to accept any normative perspective which has such implications. That is, it might be argued that it is possible to conceive of a sceptic who accepts this sentence but does not accept any normative perspective which has implication as regards moral norms for the simple reason that she does not think there are any grounds for taking a normative stance of this kind. Unfortunately, I cannot pursue this line of argument here.

  29. Cf. Horsnby (2001): 133. One possible explanation of this difference between pejoratives and moral terms is that as regards the latter there is no preexisting term with the same co-extension. See Fletcher (forthcoming).

  30. Accordingly, it is difficult to imagine a genuine sceptic about pejoratives, since the descriptive part of such expressions, i.e. what they refer to, consist in objects that evidently exist (e.g., Italians).

  31. For example, a problem akin to the Frege-Geach problem seems to affect an expressivist view of pejoratives; see Hom (2010): 171. According to alternative views, although a person’s utterance of (10) might somehow convey that she has a certain general attitude, this should not be explained in terms of pejoratives expressing attitudes; see e.g., Hom (2008): 416–440, and Anderson and Lepore (2013): 25–48.

  32. In the terminology adopted earlier, a person who accepts (1*) and (2*) but denies (3*) fails to have a logically consistent set of beliefs.

  33. Of course, the same line of reasoning holds if she accepts (2) but denies (1).

  34. That is, assume that she denies (3*).

  35. I will not discuss the alternative objects mentioned in the quotation, since this would not make any difference to my arguments. It should be stressed that this option might not reflect Ridge’s current view.

  36. Moreover, it presumably needs to incorporate the central claim of the second option. It is difficult to see why we should assume that a person who accepts (1) has attitude A towards property B unless it also is assumed that she has this attitude towards actions that have B. In particular, it seems unable to explain internalism. The third options states that a person who accepts (1) has attitude A towards a certain property B and the belief that lying has property B. But this does not mean that she has any motivating attitude A towards lying (even if we assume that she is relevantly rational). The obvious way to assure that the person in question has attitude A towards lying is to assume that she in addition has this attitude towards actions that have B.

  37. Of course, there are other versions of this type of hybrid expressivism; however, the fourth option is the only one I can think of that seems plausible.

  38. As above, ‘3*’ refers to ‘Getting your little brother to lie has B’.

  39. According one view, (2) express a higher-order attitude such that a person who accepts it need not be in the attitude expressed by (1). For example, (2) might be taken to express a positive attitude towards having a negative attitude towards lying in combination with having a negative attitude towards getting one’s little brother to lie. Hence, a person might accept (2) even though she does not have the attitude expressed by (1). See e.g., Blackburn (1984): Ch. 6. For another alternative, see Gibbard (2003): Ch. 3.

  40. For an overview, see Schroeder (2010): Ch. 6–7. For individual contributions, see Blackburn (1984): Ch. 6; Blackburn (1993): Ch. 10; Gibbard (2003): Ch. 3, and Schroeder (2008): Part II.

  41. Thus, whereas (i) might contribute to the truth-value of the sentence, (ii) does not. There are different versions of this view depending on how (i) and (ii) are specified. For different versions of this approach, see e.g., Barker (2000): 208–279, and Copp (2001): 167–202. For criticism, see e.g., Finlay (2005): 1–20; Ridge (2014): 83–89, and Fletcher (forthcoming). The notion of CI is characterized in Grice (1989): 25–26. It can be argued that a moral utterance carries a conventional implicature as regards one attitude and a conversational implicature as regards another attitude; see Barker (2000): 271–273. It has been argued that a conventional implicature view holds for pejoratives; see e.g., Williamson (2009): 137–158.

  42. Barker (2003): 8–13. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer who made me recognize this possibility. For example, although ‘Even John is given amnesty’ carries the CI that there are other than John that will be given amnesty, a person’s acceptance of ‘If even John is given amnesty, there will be a peace deal’ does not commit her to this being the case (Barker (2003): 10–11). Barker explains cases in which CIs do project in terms of conversational pragmatics; Barker (2003): 24. Copp responds to a related problem in a different manner; see Copp (2009): 187–188.

  43. Barker (2000): 273–274. For a general account of validity in terms of assertability, see Barker (2003): 23–25. Unfortunately, I do not have space to discuss this suggestion here. However, it seems plausible to assume that this account of validity is not available to hybrid expressivists, since it rests on the notion of CI. Baker’s notion of validity is criticized in van Roojen (2005): 193–205–204.

  44. For discussion of this aspect, see Finlay (2005): 1–20; Copp (2009): 189–201, and Fletcher (forthcoming).

  45. There are different versions of this view depending on how (i) and (ii) are specified. See e.g., Finlay (2004): 205–223; Railton (2006): 201–219, and Strandberg (2012b): 87–122. For criticism, see e.g., Ridge (2014): 82–83, 92–97, and Fletcher (forthcoming). The difference between PCI and GCI is described in Grice (1989): 22–40. For another hybrid view that is not meaning based, see Bar-On and Chrisman (2009): 133–167.

  46. Strandberg (2011): 341–3. Cf. Fletcher (forthcoming). As Grice points out, it is easy to mistakenly come to believe that a GCI is part of the meaning of a sentence: Grice (1989): 37.

  47. For discussion of this aspect, see Fletcher (forthcoming).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Daniel Boisvert, John Eriksson, Guy Fletcher, Ragnar Francén Olinder, and two anonymous reviewers for Ethical Theory and Moral Practice for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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    Caj Strandberg

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Strandberg, C. Options for Hybrid Expressivism. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 18, 91–111 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-014-9511-2

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