Abstract
In order to rebut G. E. Moore’s open question argument, ethical naturalists adopt a theory of direct reference for our moral terms. T. Horgan and M. Timmons have argued that this theory cannot be applied to moral terms, on the ground that it clashes with competent speakers’ linguistic intuitions. While Putnam’s Twin Earth thought experiment shows that our linguistic intuitions confirm the theory of direct reference, as applied to ‘water’, Horgan and Timmons devise a parallel thought experiment about moral terms, in order to show that this theory runs against our linguistic intuitions about such terms. My claim is that the Horgan–Timmons argument does not work. I concede that their thought experiment is a good way to test the applicability of the theory of direct reference to moral terms, and argue that the upshot of their experiment is not what they claim it is: our linguistic intuitions about Moral Twin Earth are parallel to, not different from, our intuitions about Twin Earth.
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Notes
I think that the peculiar use of ‘naturalism’ I have pointed out is due to the influence of this book. For similar remarks about the standard use of the term ‘naturalism’ in meta-ethics, see Sturgeon (2003).
Moore’s strategy has another unquestioned assumption as well, according to which naturalism entails the identity of goodness with one of the natural properties denoted by predicates from non moral language. Against this assumption, a naturalist might hold that moral properties are further natural properties: we have no other linguistic resources, beyond ethical language, to denote them. In what follows I shall not examine this option: for a naturalistic position along these lines see Sturgeon (1985, 2003, 2006).
Talk of the theory of direct reference is ambiguous, since opinions differ as to how to describe the reference-fixing relation, that is the relation R, between a term t and a property P, in virtue of which (according to the theory) t refers to P: for present purposes the ambiguity is easily removed, because H&T claim that their argument is effective against any version of the theory of direct reference one might try to apply to moral terms.
The relation that the theory treats as reference-fixing (see note 7).
We are supposing that N* is the unique property R-related to Twin-Earthlings’ use of ‘right’ and that it is characterizable via a deontological theory. Since from the second supposition it follows that N* may be a disjunctive property (N1 ∨ N2, if we suppose that N1 and N2 actions are the actions prescribed by the deontological theory), we have to accept that disjunctive properties are genuine properties. This is a debatable claim. However, since nothing in the present discussion hangs upon it, I will not tackle this issue. Those who think that a disjunctive property cannot be the unique property R-related to the use of a certain term are free to substitute a different property for N*: as it will be clear in a short while, the only important point is that the two properties R-related to the use of ‘right’ on the two planets be different.
The conclusion of the argument is negative: the theory of direct reference is not the right semantics for our moral terms, because it cannot account for our linguistic intuitions about MTE scenarios. If we want to develop a semantic theory able to do that, we have to develop (this is H&T’s positive proposal: see Horgan and Timmons 2006) a non-descriptivist semantic theory: that is, a semantic theory according to which the contribution the term ‘right’ gives to the meaning of such sentences as ‘The action x is right’ is not a matter of its referring to some property, but is explained by means of the role these sentences play in guiding choices and actions. This role is held fixed on Earth and on MTE in the thought experiment, and it is precisely this fact what (according to H&T) explains our intuition that ‘right’ has the same meaning on the two planets (on this point see also Horgan and Timmons 1992b, p. 170).
On this point see also Horgan and Timmons (1992a, pp. 243–244 and note 36).
Copp, for instance, appeals to a general principle of moral supervenience and to the assumption that causal laws are the same on the two planets: see Copp (2000, pp. 131–132).
On this point I agree with H&T: see Horgan and Timmons (1992b, pp. 168–169).
Even if we suppose that these rules prescribe the same actions as those prescribed by the deontological theory in H&T’s example, the difference lies in the fact that in my example the reason why Twin-Earthlings judge an action to be ‘right’ is that it is conformable to the rules of behavior handed on within the community: in my example Twin-Earthlings say “An act of benevolence is right because our community’s rules provide that we shall make acts of benevolence”.
One might observe that in a MTE scenario the ‘right’-judgments on MTE are supposed to play a role, in Twin-Earthlings’ social life, comparable to the role played by our ‘right’-judgments in ours, and object that the two properties I suppose to be R-related to Twin-Earthlings’ use of ‘right’ in my two variations are such that that cannot be true. I do not see any special difficulty in supposing that conformity to the community’s rules of behavior plays the role in question on MTE (the case with my second variation is maybe more complex, though in the end, I believe, not different); and in any case one should remember that, as I observed against the first line of reply to H&T’s argument I considered above (and as H&T themselves maintain: see note 15), in order for a Twin Earth-style thought experiment to be relevant to the semantics of a given class of terms, broad conceivability is all that is needed, and my two variations (whatever one thinks of their actual plausibility) certainly are broadly conceivable.
In assessing this claim, it is important to realize that though (supposing that on a given occasion the right action does not coincide with the ‘right’ action) Earthlings and Twin-Earthlings will choose and advise different courses of action, this fact in itself does not answer our question. Our question is whether such a difference is sufficient for us to describe them as in moral disagreement with one another: would competent speakers say that Earthlings and Twin-Earthlings morally disagree with one another? Or would they say that they disagree about what to do, the one group giving priority to moral considerations while the other group gives priority to a different kind of considerations?
One might object that there are several stories one could tell about Twin-Earthlings in order to drive us to see their ‘right’-judgments as expressing moral beliefs. For example, if we suppose that Twin-Earthlings’ traditional rules of behavior were originally established on the ground of the belief that behaving that way was the best way to honor God, hence to preserve the community from His wrath, then we would be inclined to regard Twin-Earthlings’ judgment ‘Right actions are actions conforming to the community’s rules’ as expressing a moral belief. I think this is true, but not relevant. A MTE scenario is fixed once the property R-related to Twin-Earthlings’ use of ‘right’ is fixed. We are considering the MTE scenario which is given through the supposition that the property R-related to Twin-Earthlings’ use of ‘right’ is that of being conformable to the community’s rules of behavior. In considering this scenario and our intuitions about it, we cannot add such stories as the one about God, because they go against the supposition that that is the property R-related to Twin-Earthlings’ use of ‘right’ (that is the reason why Twin-Earthlings judge an action to be ‘right’). If we add the story about God, the reason why an action is ‘right’ is no longer its being conformable to the rules of behavior handed on within the community, but its being the best way to preserve the community (or something like that). The same considerations apply to my second MTE example.
Consider, for instance, how Twin-Earthlings educate their children. Since they are normally disposed to do, and to urge other people to do, what is ‘right’, Twin-Earthlings teach them from childhood to take care, in their choices, of their own interests in the first place. Observing parents and teachers who thus exhort children from MTE to do ‘right’ actions, I think a group of Earthling explorers would not say the children are being taught a morality: rather, they would say that they are being taught to make their decisions without taking moral considerations into account.
Of course, this claim does not commit me to thinking that, if someone held that right actions are, say, actions conforming to the community’s rules, she would mean something different by ‘right’ than I do. In such a case, the default assumption would be that she and I mean the same, and she made some mistake in characterizing the property R-related to our use of ‘right’. This option is unavailable in the case of our thought experiments, however, because Twin-Earthlings are supposed to have converged on a theory that adequately characterizes the property R-related to their use of ‘right’: in Twin-Earthlings’ case, being conformable to the community’s rules of behavior actually is, ex hypothesi, the property R-related to their use of the term.
This is a hybrid constraint because we need the results of our empirical researches in order to let H2O get into the picture. For the distinction between pure and hybrid semantic constraints see Horgan and Timmons (1992a, p. 235).
Properly speaking, what yields a hybrid semantic constraint is not our knowledge of some actual-world facts, but the obtaining of the facts themselves. Yet, if we lacked knowledge of these facts, the constraint could not reveal itself in a Twin Earth-style thought experiment: since my interest here is in hybrid constraints revealed by Twin Earth-style thought experiments, I’ll sometimes write that our knowledge yields hybrid semantic constraints.
This account comes largely from Brink (1984). I think we take considerations of this kind as decisive in singling out moral uses of words or in identifying moral terms in foreign languages. Granted, what I take to be a bit of ethical knowledge is not a very specific piece of knowledge. This is so because ethics is not yet a fully developed science (for reasons that need not concern us here: remember we are granting that there is a unique normative theory which adequately specifies that bit of ethical knowledge, and that we have a good method for our normative researches, which would lead us to converge on that theory). Anyway, this (admitted) fact is no objection against my point: I claim that there are semantic constraints forbidding us to apply our term ‘right’ to any content, and my bit of ethical knowledge is enough in order to defend this claim, because it enables us to rule something out (of course, if our intuitions rule my two examples out, even if what we have concluded about ethics is not very specific yet, then the same will hold true if we suppose we have specified those conclusions and obtained a fully developed normative theory: our intuitions will continue to rule those two examples out).
It might be objected that what I propose as a bit of ethical knowledge is exactly the type of ethical claim an ethical naturalist would be most likely to endorse, with its emphasis on human survival, needs, wants and capacities, and thus that I am reading my own philosophical stance into our intuitions about MTE scenarios. I do not think the ethical claim I propose in the text has any peculiarly naturalistic flavor. It amounts to the view that, among the properties of an object of moral evaluation, the ones which have direct moral relevance are those bearing on (say) the satisfaction of human needs and wants rather than on the observance of established traditions: the appeal of such a claim is, I believe, quite independent of that (supposing it has any) of ethical naturalism, and I am certain this is a view endorsed among both defenders and opponents of ethical naturalism (though, of course, while a non-cognitivist, for instance, will think that, in accepting it, she is expressing her own attitudes, a naturalist will believe she is specifying the nature of moral properties). Moreover, at the heart of my denial of H&T’s thesis about competent speakers’ linguistic intuitions are my two examples: what I offer in the text is an attempt at (approximately) stating the bit of ethical knowledge we must have, if I am right about my two examples, but the precise formulation of it is not crucial to my argument. A purely negative formulation (ethics is not about, say, established traditions) would do equally well, and the objection I am considering would be even less plausible if applied to that formulation.
Actually the piece of knowledge I appeal to is not about rightness specifically, but about moral properties in general. The fact that I appeal to a piece of knowledge about moral properties in general (and not specifically about rightness, though my examples are about the moral term ‘right’) is again due to the fact that our ethical researches are still very far from meeting with complete success.
Talk of “ethical conclusions” (instead of “ethical knowledge”) is neutral between naturalism and anti-naturalism, so this is the right way to put things in discussing about MTE scenarios and our intuitions about them. Once I have established my claim that our intuitions are that Twin-Earthlings do not talk about rightness (as I claim I have done about my two MTE scenarios), I am allowed to explain these intuitions interpreting our ethical conclusions as providing us with hybrid semantic constraints, hence with ethical knowledge (construed as a naturalist does): that is, I am allowed to interpret our ethical conclusions as specifying the nature of the property of being right, and not (as H&T do) as attributing rightness (not a property at all, in their view) to all the actions that have a certain non moral property in common. That is why I used talk of “ethical knowledge” at the end of the preceding section, and I now turn back to use talk of “ethical conclusions”.
Notice that describing Twin-Earthlings’ theory as a deontological theory, as H&T do (see, for instance, Horgan and Timmons 1991, pp. 456 and 460, 1992a, pp. 245 and 246), and as for brevity’s sake I have done myself, is question-begging: part of what we mean by calling a theory “deontological” is that it is a theory about rightness, while the question here is precisely whether Twin-Earthlings’ theory about ‘right’ actions is a theory about rightness or not.
A similar point is made in Sayre-McCord (1997) and in Merli (2002). Remember that the fact that Earthlings and Twin-Earthlings might choose and advise different courses of action does not in itself answer our question; nor, of course, is it possible to ascribe any mistake to either Earthlings or Twin-Earthlings in the characterization of the properties R-related to their respective uses of ‘right’.
Analogously, suppose again that we have not yet concluded that water is made up of H2O molecules: in such a case, upon being told that what Twin-Earthlings call ‘water’ is made up of XYZ molecules, we would not immediately conclude that their term is not synonymous with ours. Does this mean that the theory of direct reference does not apply to ‘water’? Of course not. If we have not yet reached that conclusion, the relevant intuitions are not those we have, but those we would have if we had concluded that water is made up of H2O molecules: would we then say that Twin-Earthlings do not talk about water? The applicability of the theory of direct reference to ‘water’ depends on the answer to this question.
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Acknowledgments
This paper has benefited from helpful comments and conversations with Andrea Bianchi, Terence Horgan, Paolo Leonardi, Ernesto Napoli, Eva Picardi, Mario Ricciardi, Marco Santambrogio, Nicholas Sturgeon, and Mark Timmons. I would also like to thank my commentators and the audiences at the 2005 CUNY Graduate Student Philosophy Conference, the 2005 Mid-South Philosophy Conference at the University of Memphis, and the 2005 British Society for Ethical Theory Conference at the University of Leeds, and two anonymous referees for Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.
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Viggiano, A. Ethical Naturalism and Moral Twin Earth. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 11, 213–224 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-007-9094-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-007-9094-2