6' Error Theory and Fictionalism

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6. Error Theory and Fictionalism

• Antti Kauppinen

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I Why Moral Discourse Is In Error
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What Is Error Theory?

• According to an error theory about an area of
  discourse (talk and thought about witches or
  ethics or aesthetics or colours or causation or
  whatever) all positive claims about the subject
  matter are false
• Negative assertions can still be true, of course
  if aesthetic discourse is in error, it is true
  that nothing is beautiful (nor ugly!), and if
  witch-talk is in error, there are no witches

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Why Error Theory?

• The reason to adopt an error theory is that the
  discourse involves ineliminable commitments to
  non-existing entities, properties, or relations
• If the discourse could remain recognizably the
  same after eliminating disreputable commitments,
  we might reform rather than reject it
• Thus, an argument for an error theory has three
  basic steps
• The Semantic Step Show that the discourse
  involves ineliminable ontological commitment to
  the existence of x-s
• The Metaphysical or Ontological Step Show that
  x-s do not exist (or that we have no good reason
  to believe they exist)
• The Explanatory Step Show how and why we
  nevertheless have come to believe why x-s exist

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Example Error Theory About Witch Discourse

• Semantic step Witches are women who have
  supernatural powers due to an alliance with evil
• Note that having supernatural powers is essential
  to being a witch it does not suffice for being
  a witch that one is a powerful woman, for example
• Translation test what must an alien cultures
  linguistic practice be like for us to correctly
  translate a term of theirs as meaning witch?
• Ontological step There are no such women
• Explanatory step People believed in witches
  because it helped make sense of and assign blame
  for changes of fortune during a period of social
  upheaval

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Mackies Error Theory About Ethics An Outline

• The semantic thesis Our ordinary moral discourse
  is ineliminably committed to the existence of
  mind-independent properties that are objectively
  and intrinsically action-guiding
• The ontological thesis There are no
  mind-independent properties that would be
  objectively and intrinsically action-guiding
• So, our ordinary moral discourse is in error

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a) The Semantic Thesis

• Expressivism is false the surface of moral
  discourse cant be explained in terms of
  expressing attitudes
• Rather, Moore was correct when we say that
  something is good, we are ascribing a sui generis
  non-natural property to it
• This property is non-natural because of its
  peculiar evaluative, prescriptive, intrinsically
  action-guiding aspects

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The Semantic Thesis Action-Guidingness

• There are two ways in which a property can be
  objectively and intrinsically action-guiding
• Motivational anyone who is acquainted with the
  property is automatically motivated to pursue,
  promote etc. whatever has it (cf. internalism)
• Normative anyone has a normative reason to
  pursue, promote etc. whatever has it, regardless
  of what they happen to want
• Platos Form of the Good dramatizes both of these
  senses well
• It is such that knowledge of it provides the
  knower with both a direction and an overriding
  motive somethings being good both tells the
  person who knows this to pursue it and makes him
  pursue it it has to-be-pursuedness somehow
  built into it

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b) The Ontological Thesis

• Mackies ontological thesis is simply that there
  are no properties that would have a
  to-be-pursuedness built into them nothing that
  would be motivate and give a good reason to
  anyone
• Mackie presents arguments from relativity,
  queerness, and supervenience to establish this

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The Argument from Relativity

• If there were moral facts, we would expect them
  to be reflected in moral codes of all cultures
• But there is widespread moral disagreement
  between cultures and societies at different times
  in history
• The best explanation for this fact is not that
  some cultures have inferior epistemic practices
  (as is the case with empirical disagreement) and
  thus lack access to objective values
• Instead, moral codes are not based on objective
  values but on each cultures way of life, which
  explains the differences
• It is that people approve of monogamy because
  they participate in a monogamous way of life
  rather than that they participate in a monogamous
  way of life because they approve of monogamy.

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The Argument from Queerness

• Two parts, metaphysical and epistemological
• If there were objective values, then they would
  be entities or qualities or relations of a very
  strange sort, utterly different from anything
  else in the universe.
• If we were to be aware of them, it would have to
  be by some special faculty of moral perception or
  intuition, utterly different from our ways of
  knowing anything else.

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The Argument from Supervenience

• Further, moral properties are supposed to be
  dependent on natural properties, but how?
• What is the connection between the fact that an
  action is a piece of deliberate cruelty say,
  causing pain just for fun and the moral fact
  that it is wrong?
• The action is wrong because it is cruel but
  what does it mean, and how do we know when such
  mysterious consequential link obtains?

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Joyces Variation

• In his development of error theory, Richard Joyce
  focuses on the categorical bindingness of moral
  demands and its connection to reasons in short,
  moral obligations presuppose the existence of
  desire-independent reasons, but there are no such
  things, so there are no moral obligations
• If A morally ought to x, then A ought to x
  regardless of whether it satisfies any of her
  desires or serves her interests
• If A morally ought to x, she has a reason for
  x-ing
• So, if A morally ought to x, she has a reason for
  x-ing regardless of whether it satisfies any of
  her desires or serves her interests (1-3
  constitute Joyces semantic thesis)
• There are no such reasons (the ontological
  thesis)
• So, there is nothing A morally ought to do

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Non-Moral Oughts and Reasons

• There is a familiar, instrumental sense of
  ought that is relative to a persons desires or
  interests
• If you want to be rich, you ought to quit
  studying philosophy
• This ought goes together with hypothetical
  reasons, reasons that are contingent on what one
  desires
• There are also institutional oughts that are
  independent of what one happens to want, and so
  categorical, but only weakly so, because they are
  escapable
• According to the rules holding for this course,
  students ought to write a paragraph for every
  tutorial, whether they want to or not
• However, this obligation is escapable in the
  sense that it is not binding on someone who has
  no desire (and thus no hypothetical reason) to
  subscribe to the rules of the institution
• Thus, we can make sense of institutional
  obligations in terms of hypothetical reasons

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Moral Oughts and Reasons

• Moral oughts, in contrast, are strongly
  categorical they are inescapable in the sense
  that they are binding on anyone regardless of
  what they want and regardless of whether there
  are hypothetical reasons to subscribe to the
  institution of morality
• The committed Nazi nevertheless ought to stop
  killing the undesirables
• Since whenever it is the case that someone ought
  to do something she necessarily also has a reason
  to do so, moral obligations presuppose the
  existence of non-hypothetical reasons
• Moral demands are authoritative, and for
  something to be authoritative for an agent, she
  must have a reason to obey it an answer to the
  question why should I care about it?
• This is what is missing in the case of
  institutional oughts

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The Relativity of Reasons

• Joyces ontological thesis is that there are no
  non-hypothetical reasons all genuine practical
  reasons are relative to the actual motives of
  agents, which vary from person to person
• Objective and subjective agent-relative reasons
• A has an objective reason to f iff f-ing would
  further her ends
• A has a subjective reason to f iff she is
  justified in believing that f-ing would further
  her ends
• Practical rationality
• A is practically rational to the extent she is
  guided by her subjective reasons
• Practical rationality is the only source of
  ultimate authority to ask why one should care
  about something is to ask for a reason, so it is
  self-defeating to question the authority of
  practical rationality

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Against Desire-Independent Reasons

• Joyce takes it to be a platitude that reasons are
  considerations that motivate a correctly
  deliberating agent who is aware of them
• If a normative reason could not potentially
  motivate an agent, then, if presented with such a
  reason, an agent could say Yes, I accept that is
  a normative reason for me, but so what?
• As Bernard Williams argues, any putative
  desire-independent or agent-neutral reasons fail
  this test
• One can accept that a set of rules requires one
  to perform an action, but nevertheless perfectly
  rationally fail to be motivated to act so, if the
  set of rules does not serve ones ends
• Thus, there are no desire-independent reasons
• Thus, there are no reasons to respond to moral
  demands when doing so would conflict with ones
  non-moral ends moral obligations are not
  authoritative for everyone (categorically
  binding)
• But since the distinctive feature of moral
  obligations is their categorical bindingness, we
  might as well say that there are no moral
  obligations

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Joyces Argument, Again

• If A morally ought to x, then A ought to x
  regardless of whether it satisfies any of her
  desires or serves her interests
• If A morally ought to x, she has a reason for
  x-ing
• So, if A morally ought to x, she has a reason for
  x-ing regardless of whether it satisfies any of
  her desires or serves her interests
• There are no such reasons
• So, there is nothing A morally ought to do

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How to Reject Error Theory

• Since error theory is a conjunction of two
  claims, semantic and ontological, it can be
  rejected by rejecting either (or both)
• Rejecting the semantic claim
• Expressivism the purpose of moral discourse is
  not to describe anything
• Naturalism the purpose of moral discourse is not
  to pick out intrinsically action-guiding
  properties but ordinary natural properties
• Rejecting the ontological claim
• Non-naturalism there are mind-independent,
  objectively and intrinsically action-guiding
  properties
• Kantian constructivism there are categorically
  binding demands of rationality
• Rejecting both claims
• Sensibility theories there are objectively and
  intrinsically action-guiding properties, but they
  are mind-dependent, and that is all ordinary
  moral discourse commits us to

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II The Roots of Error
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Why Do We Make the Mistake?

• An error theory is incomplete unless it explains
  how we come to make the error
• Why would we be so massively and universally
  mistaken?
• Why are we mistaken in the particular way we are?

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Mackies Projectivism

• Like Hume says, the mind has a propensity to
  spread itself on external objects
• We feel disgust when we eat food that has gone
  off, and as a result attribute to the food the
  property of being foul or disgusting
• In the moral case, it is natural to think that
  being obligatory or forbidden attach to actions
  themselves, since social demand they express is
  not issued by anyone in particular and is
  addressed to anyone in the same situation
• If I tell you to open the door, it is transparent
  that the pressure on you to open the door is
  contingent on my will and authority if it is
  expected of everyone that they refrain from
  stealing, it may seem like stealing itself has
  the quality of being wrong
• Ethics is like a system of law from which the
  legislator has been removed

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The Evolution of Morality

• Why do we project the sort of queer qualities we
  do in the case of morality?
• Joyce answers this in evolutionary terms and
  argues that this type of account of our
  disposition to moralize undermines our
  justification to hold moral beliefs
• In short, we make the mistake because we are
  built to make it, and were built that way
  because it serves an adaptive purpose

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Evolution and Moral Judgment A Sketch

• Natural selection leads to the proliferation of
  fitness-enhancing traits
• It is fitness-enhancing to help kin and
  participate in reciprocal cooperation
• The most effective means for producing such
  fitness-enhancing behaviour is a sense of duty,
  an innate disposition to treat certain behaviours
  as obligatory regardless of desire and
  self-interest
• So, natural selection favours an innate
  disposition to moralize

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1. Natural Selection

• Natural selection is (roughly) the process
  whereby heritable traits that enhance the
  reproductive success of their bearers become more
  prevalent in successive generations
• An individuals genotype is its genetic
  constitution, while its phenotype is the totality
  of its traits or characteristics
• The phenotype is a result of the interaction
  between the genotype and the environment
• Evolutionary fitness is (very roughly) the
  relative likelihood of a genotype to transmit
  copies of its genes to the next generation

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2. Helping, Cooperation, and Altruism

• It is all too common to abuse the term altruism
  in discussions about the evolution of morality
  at least three senses can be distinguished
• Behavioral altruism helping, behaving in a
  way that benefits another individual at some cost
  to oneself
• Evolutionary altruism fitness sacrificing,
  behaving in a way that benefits another
  individuals reproductive fitnes at the expense
  of ones own
• Psychological altruism altruism proper,
  acting out of non-derivative concern for the
  welfare of another individual
• Helping behaviour is fitness-enhancing under
  various circumstances
• Kin selection genes that dispose to help ones
  offspring and relatives spread in a population
• Reciprocal altruism in ubiquitous Prisoners
  Dilemma situations, sacrificing short-term
  benefit to self leads to mutual benefit in the
  long run
• When interactions are iterated, it becomes
  crucial to be able to detect cheaters, and so
  beneficial to build a reputation as a non-cheater

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3. Mechanisms for Helping and Cooperation

• Since human behaviour in general is flexible and
  intelligent, helping behaviour needs to be
  implemented by way of a psychological mechanism
  rather than brute reaction disposition (as in
  ants, say)
• Thus, for example, parents (typically) have a
  desire to do things that benefit their children,
  and this desire leads to helping behaviour
• This sort of desire is supported and to a certain
  extent directed further as a result of sympathy,
  the capacity to share in the feelings of others

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3. Mechanisms for Helping Sense of Duty

• Sympathetic desires may fail in some situations
  in which helping would be beneficial
• Desires may be overridden by a stronger desire
  for short-term self-interest or extinguished by
  exhaustion
• As Hume and Smith pointed out, sympathy is also
  subject to perspectival distortions it favours
  the near and the dear and those who are similar
  to us
• So, it would be adaptive to have another
  mechanism that is not sensitive to similar
  fluctuations of feeling
• Because of these kinds of limitations of desire,
  an individual does better (in the sense of being
  more reproductively fit) if she has her desires
  in favour of family members supplemented by a
  sense of requirement to favour family members. It
  is not merely that an individual wants to help
  her sisters son, but he feels taht he ought to
  he feels that he must. (Joyce 2001, 137)

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Extending the Sense of Duty

• Once these psychological mechanisms are in place,
  they can be recruited for other
  fitness-enhancing purposes
• Individuals may cooperate in social action as a
  result of self-interested calculation, but they
  are more reliable if they do so as a result of a
  sense of requirement they wont exploit others
  even if theres a chance of getting away with it
• Cooperation is made even more probable if
  cheating does not just lead to disappointment but
  also punishment
• It is the general motivational mechanism rather
  than particular contents that are innate
• Some people believe that slavery is wrong, others
  that it is right what is innate is the tendency
  to moralize some activities (to apply moral
  concepts like obligatory and forbidden) and be
  correspondingly motivated
• The most notable feature of moral belief is that
  it silences certain otherwise potentially
  attractive options, such as cheating

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Evolutionary Naturalism

• Some have argued that we can reduce moral facts
  to natural facts by way of an evolutionary story
• Rottschaefer an action is morally right iff
  humans have evolved to respond to it with
  approval
• Joyces objection is that this leaves unexplained
  the authority of moral obligations
• It is not inappropriate to respond with so
  what? if it turns out that most humans have an
  innate tendency to disapprove of what you do it
  doesnt give you a reason not to do it

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Evolution and Error Theory

• Joyce argues that the fact that a sense of duty
  is an adaptation undermines the justification we
  have for our moral beliefs
• The argument is straightforward
• Beliefs are justified only if they are sensitive
  to evidence
• Because moral beliefs are fitness-enhancing, we
  would hold them whether or not they were true
• Thus, the truth of our moral beliefs plays no
  role in the explanation of why we hold them
• So, our moral beliefs are not sensitive to
  evidence
• So, our moral beliefs are not justified

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III Fictionalism What to Do If There Are No
Objective Values?
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What If Error Theory is Right?

• If error theory about a discourse is right, there
  seem to be two rational options
• Eliminativism Stop talking about the subject
  matter (as we did with witches)
• Fictionalism Pretend that the entities we are
  committed to exist

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Why Fictionalism Rather Than Eliminativism?

• There can be no epistemic reason to prefer
  fictionalism to eliminativism both accept that
  the claims in the discourse are false
• But the fictionalist argues that there are
  sometimes practical reasons to talk and think as
  if the claims in the discourse can be true
• There is some non-moral good to be had if we
  believe in the myth of morality

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Mackie on Morality

• Morality is a useful invention, a device for
  counteracting limited sympathies
• Morality is not to be discovered but rather to
  be made
• The problem that morality is needed to solve
  limited resources and limited sympathies
  together generate both competition leading to
  conflict and an absence of what would be mutually
  beneficial cooperation

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What Is Fictionalism?

• Two varieties
• Hermeneutic fictionalism our actual discourse on
  the subject matter involves pretense or
  make-believe
• Revolutionary fictionalism we should adopt a
  fictionalist attitude toward the discourse
• Essential questions
• What is it to treat something as a fiction?
• Why be a fictionalist about a subject matter?

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Treating Something As Fiction

• Asserting is a matter of putting something
  forward as true, as something I believe
• According to force fictionalism, when we put
  forward something as a fiction, we are not really
  asserting anything, but only quasi-asserting
• When I say Once upon a time there was a
  princess..., Im not trying to get you to
  believe anything nor expressing my beliefs, but
  engaging you in a make-believe
• According to content fictionalism, I do make an
  assertion when I fictionalize, but its content is
  different from ordinary content
• What Im saying may be According to this fairy
  tale, once upon a time there was a princess...

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Moral Fictionalism

• Joyce moral fictionalism is a thesis about how
  we as a group should respond to the truth of
  error theory
• This is a form of revolutionary fictionalism a
  proposal for reforming our discourse
• For a hermeneutic fictionalist, our moral
  discourse wouldnt be in error in the first
  place!
• The basic argument for fictionalism is simple we
  are non-morally better off pretending there are
  moral facts than eliminating moral thought and
  talk altogether

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The Benefits of Moral Belief

• Even without moral beliefs, we have natural
  sympathy and solid self-interested reasons to
  help and cooperate, as Hobbes and Hume noted
• But as seen before in connection to evolution,
  moral beliefs function as a bulwark against
  temptation, short-sightedness, and
  rationalization by shutting certain options off
  the deliberative screen altogether
• Can mere make-believe provide the same benefits?

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The Benefits of Moral Pretense

• Fiction that is recognized as such can still
  engage our emotions
• Reading Anna Karenina may encourage a person to
  abandon a doomed love affair
• Imagining the one will otherwise certainly end up
  fat and unwanted may increase motivation to
  exercise
• Advertising works, even though we know the
  smiling faces are all bogus
• Thinking in moral fictionalist terms is a form of
  precommitment
• One is not meant to enter into the moral fiction
  every time a temptation arises, but to adopt it
  as a customary way of thinking
• If one succeeds, Joyce argues, the make-believe
  can have very similar beneficial effects as flat
  out belief a temptation never enters ones
  mind, for example
• The difference between make-believe and belief
  only comes out in critical contexts, such as a
  philosophy seminar, in which one agrees that
  there are really no moral facts