Disagreement without belief Shemmer, Yonatan; Bex‐Priestley, Graham
Metaphilosophy,
July 2021, 2021-07-00, 20210701, Letnik:
52, Številka:
3-4
Journal Article
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When theorising about disagreement, it is tempting to begin with a person's belief that p and ask what mental state one must have in order to disagree with it. This is the wrong way to go; the paper ...argues that people may also disagree with attitudes that are not beliefs. It then examines whether several existing theories of disagreement can account for this phenomenon. It argues that its own normative theory of disagreement gives the best account, and so, given that there is good reason to believe disagreement without belief is possible, there is good reason to think that disagreement itself is normative.
In many situations, people are unsure in their moral judgments. In much recent philosophical literature, this kind of moral doubt has been analysed in terms of uncertainty in one's moral beliefs. ...Non-cognitivists, however, argue that moral judgments express a kind of conative attitude, more akin to a desire than a belief. This paper presents a scientifically informed reconciliation of non-cognitivism and moral doubt. The central claim is that attitudinal ambivalence-the degree to which one holds conflicting attitudes towards the same object-can play the role of moral doubt for non-cognitivists. I will demonstrate that ambivalence has all of the features that we would expect it to have in order to play the role of moral doubt. It is gradable, can vary through time, covaries with strength of motivation, and is suitably distinct from the other features of our moral judgments. As well as providing a defence of non-cognitivism, this insight poses a new challenge for the view-deciding how to act under moral ambivalence.
The moral error theory, it seems, could be true. The mere possibility of its truth might also seem inconsequential. But it is not. For, I argue, there is a sense in which the moral error theory is ...possible that generates an argument against both non‐cognitivism and moral naturalism. I argue that it is an epistemic possibility that morality is subject to some form of wholesale error of the kind that would make the moral error theory true. Denying this possibility has three unwelcome consequences such that allowing for and explaining it is an adequacy condition on meta‐ethical theories. Non‐cognitivism and moral naturalism, I argue, cannot capture the epistemic possibility of wholesale moral error and so are false. My argument additionally provides independent reason to accept Derek Parfit's claim that if moral non‐naturalism is false then nothing matters. I conclude that whether wholesale moral error is epistemically possible may be, in Richard Rorty's words, ‘one of those issues which puts everything up for grabs at once’ and that even if so, and even if non‐cognitivists and moral naturalists remain unmoved by an argument based upon it, this only helps to highlight the significance of my argument.
Having a non-cognitivist approach to religious language, Phillips believes that in the grammar of prayer, the demonstration of a transcendent entity as its object is not of priority; The explanation ...of its meaningfulness within the religious form of life is of priority. Comprising prayer and incantation, he shows that although people consider both trans-physical ways for achieving goals, the importance of any prayer for a believer roots in the change it makes in her life. The magician maintains the efficacy of chants; A believer does not have the same view about prayer. Basing on these differences, Phillips concludes that prayer as an internal reality means talking to God about griefs and wishes. Prayer for believers is an attempt to find meaning and hope that saves them from the damaging factors in their life. That is why the praying person can understand God's divinity in prayer. In examining Phillips' theory about prayer, it will be revealed that his theory is circular and in opposition to Wittgensteinian language-game theory. Additionally, I will show that his dicta about the difference between prayer and incantation contrast with some of the positivistic elements of his philosophy.
Abstract
Many think that expressivists have a special problem with negation. I disagree. For if there is a problem with negation, I argue, it is a problem shared by those who accept some plausible ...claims about the nature of intentionality. Whether there is any special problem for expressivists turns, I will argue, on whether facts about what truth-conditions beliefs have can explain facts about basic inferential relations among those beliefs. And I will suggest that the answer to this last question is, on most plausible attempts at solving the problem of intentionality, ‘no’.
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Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
According to G.E.M Anscombe’s paper ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, modern moral philosophy has introduced a spurious concept of moral obligation, and has therefore made a mistake that the ...Greeks, and Aristotle in particular, avoided. Anscombe argues that the modern concepts of obligation, duty, and the moral ‘ought’ are the remnants of an earlier, but post-Aristotelian conception of ethics, and that they ought to be abandoned. An examination of Anscombe’s historical and philosophical claims shows that we have no reason to take them seriously. In particular, they rest on a misinterpretation of Scholastic views on ‘ought’ and obligation.
Why Belief? Varieties of Religious Commitment Scott, Michael
Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie,
11/2023, Letnik:
65, Številka:
4
Journal Article
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Abstract
Are religious commitments beliefs or some other kind of mental state? Do religious affirmations express beliefs or other non-doxastic attitudes? These questions have been prominent in ...philosophical research on the language and psychology of religion since the mid-twentieth century, but the history of interest in these topics traces back to late antiquity. In a recent paper, Tim Crane approaches these questions from the perspective of research on theories about the nature of belief. According to some accounts, he argues, the attitudes that we call religious “beliefs” do not exhibit the properties requisite for belief. He raises grounds for dissatisfaction with the proposed account of belief and cognate debates about cognitivism and non-cognitivism, and concludes by setting out a more descriptive approach as the basis for an understanding of religious attitudes. This paper argues that Crane’s argument relies on an unduly demanding theory of belief. However, the concerns that he raises about the belief status of religious commitment can be motivated – and are extensively debated – in recent research on religious faith. Crane’s characterisation of the cognitive/non-cognitive debate is also disputed. The paper concludes by raising concerns about Crane’s description of the scope of the field of religious language.
Para confiar, no hay que saber Garcia Valverde, Facundo
Contrastes (Málaga, Spain),
05/2021, Letnik:
26, Številka:
1
Journal Article
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Una característica indiscutible de la amistad es la confianza: los amigos confían entre sí contándose secretos y ayudándose especialmente cuando existen riesgos de que algo vaya mal.
Este artículo ...investiga la naturaleza de esa confianza. Aquí se mostrará que, en relaciones espesas de amistad y familia, la confianza no es un juicio sobre los riesgos de interactuar con otro sino una forma emotivamente cargada de considerar a los otros. Para mostrarlo, se ofrecerán tres razones obtenidas del análisis de la fenomenología de la traición, es decir, cuando la confianza ha sido destruida.
Moral expressivism suggests that 1) moral sentences lack truth conditions and 2) our purpose in asserting moral sentences is to express non-cognitive attitudes such as desires, approval, or ...disapproval. Moral expressivism meets a fundamental challenge, known as the Frege-Geach problem. Sentences that express moral judgments can form part of semantically complex sentences. “P” (a moral sentence) contradicts “~P”, and “Q” follows logically, by modus ponens, from (1) “P” and (2) “if P, then Q”. Geach argued that noncognitivists are committed to denying that moral predicates mean the same thing in embedded contexts as they do in unembedded sentences (atomic sentences). If “P” does not mean the same as the antecedent of (2), the argument would be invalid. The problem is that the above-mentioned argument is obviously valid. Blackburn has argued that the complex sentence expresses a ‘higher-order’ attitude toward the attitudes expressed by the smaller sentences which make it up. If we accept the premises of a valid argument but deny its conclusion our attitudes clash in the same way that they do if we both believe that P and ~P. Blackburn's meta-attitudes approach faces several problems. Someone who endorses the premises but denies the conclusion of the valid argument commits himself to a moral inconsistency, not a logical one. In addition, uttering both ‘P’ and ‘~P’ seem to be inconsistent but expressivism cannot explain the inconsistency between these two obviously inconsistent sentences. Blackburn's strategy of inventing a new attitude, such as tolerance, is also unable to solve this problem.IntroductionMoral expressivism suggests that 1) moral sentences lack truth conditions (negative claim) and 2) our purpose in asserting moral sentences is to express non-cognitive attitudes such as desires, approval, or disapproval (positive claim). Moral expressivism meets a fundamental challenge known as the Frege-Geach problem (Geach, 1960, 1965). In the following, the Frege-Geach problem and Simon Blackburn’s response to it will be examined. Blackburn has developed several different answers to the Frege-Geach Problem In this article, only the answer which appeals to the higher-order attitudes (Blackburn, 1984) will be examined, and it will be shown that this expressivist recipe can not solve the Frege-Geach problem.The Frege-Geach problemThe Frege-Geach problem is the idea that moral predicate functions as a ‘logical’ one sothat sentences containing this predicate enter into logical relations with other sentences. Sentences that express moral judgments can form part of semantically complex sentences. “P”(a moral sentence) contradicts “~P”, and “Q” follows logically, by modus ponens, from (1) “P” and (2) “if P, then Q”. Geach argued that noncognitivists are committed to denying that moral predicates mean the same thing in embedded contexts as they do in unembedded sentences (atomic sentences). They cannot explain that the meaning of complex sentences is in termsof the meanings of their parts. They cannot explain why modus ponens arguments are always valid. Arguments of the form of modus ponens, according to expressivism, commit a fallacyof equivocation; because it appears to imply that “P” does have different meanings in premise (1) and in the antecedent of premise (2). “P” is asserted in premise (1) and remains unassertedin premise (2). The utterance of (2) does not seem to express approval or disapproval of “P”. If “P” does not mean the same as the antecedent of (2), the argument would be invalid. The problem is that the abovementioned argument is obviously valid. Geach (Geach, 1960, p. 223) calls this point about assertion the Frege point who was the first logician who made the pointin his distinction between the sense and the reference of a sentence. “A thought may havejust the same content whether you assent to its truth or not; a proposition may occur in discourse now asserted, now unasserted, and yet be recognizably the same proposition” (Geach, 1965,p. 449).The higher-order attitudesBlackburn denies that any of his claims entail valid moral arguments are invalid. He employs an account of what we are doing when we use ethical sentences in terms of expressing meta-attitudes about a moral sensibility; The complex sentence expresses a ‘higher-order’ attitude toward the attitudes expressed by the smaller sentences which make it up. There are logical relationships that exist among attitudes as there are among beliefs. If we accept the premises of a valid argument but deny its conclusion, our attitudes clash in the same way they do if we both believe that P and ~P. So we can explain the logical validity of the moral argument via the attitudes one can hold without clash; anyone approving (1) “P” and (2) “if P, then Q” must hold the consequential approval of “Q”. If he does not, his attitudes clash. The inconsistency originates from the clash of attitudes (failing to do something which one has committed oneself to do). Blackburn says that such a clash would involve a “fractured sensibility which cannot itself be an object of approval” because “such a sensibility cannot fulfill the practical purposes for which we evaluate things” (Blackburn, 1984, p. 195).Logical conflict and moral conflictThere is a most important problem with this strategy for Blackburn’s expressivism. The clash of attitudes can only show moral conflict and moral conflict does not necessarily lead to logical inconsistency. What needs to be explained in the moral argument is a logical inconsistency. Moreover, as Mark van Roojen (1996, pp. 21-320) has pointed out, higher-order-attitudes logic commits us to believe in logical inconsistency where there is no such inconsistency. He considers the origin of this problem to be the confusion between logical inconsistency and practical inconsistency (van Roojen, 1996, p. 332).The negation problemThe other problem for Blackburn’s expressivism was originally raised by Unwin (Nicholas Unwin, 1999, 2001). This problem is known as the ‘negation problem’. As Schroeder points out (Schroeder, 2010, p. 134), the negation problem is the same as the Frege-Geach problem, which has received more attention in recent years than its conditional form, which is presented in the modus ponens argument. The most important semantic property of the negation operator in descriptive sentences is that it makes the negated sentence inconsistent with the main sentence, in the sense that for any sentence ‘P’, ‘P’ is inconsistent with ‘~P’. According to expressivism, “murdering is wrong” (P) is used to express the attitude of disapproval towards the act of murdering. But what is expressed by “murdering is not wrong” (~P)? To utter both ‘P’ and ‘~P’ seems to be inconsistent but expressivism cannot explain the inconsistency between these two obviously inconsistent sentences; because it cannot tell us which state of mind is expressed in the moral sentences like “murdering is not wrong.” To avoid the problem, Blackburn (Blackburn, 1988, p. 189) introduces a new attitude, such as tolerance, and says that “murdering is wrong” expresses disapproval of murdering, and “murdering is not wrong” expresses tolerance of murdering. “Tolerance toward P (T!p) is equivalent to not hooraying ~p, that is, not booing p.” (Blackburn, 1988, p. 189). But there is a real difference between not accepting something and actually accepting its negation (Unwin, 1999, p. 341).ConclusionAccording to Blackburn, We are expressing our attitudes about a moral sensibility when we use ethical sentences. The question now is whether Blackburn can explain the validity of the inference from the premises of the argument to its conclusion through this strategy. This article has shown that Blackburn’s meta-attitudes approach faces several problems. Someone who endorses the premises but denies the conclusion of the valid argument commits himself to a moral inconsistency, not a logical one. In addition, expressivism has insufficient structure to account for the various ways in which a moral sentence can be negated because it cannot tell us which state of mind is expressed in moral sentences like “murdering is not wrong.” Blackburn’s strategy of inventing a new attitude, such as tolerance, is also unable to solve this problem.
Constitutivism and cognitivism Lockhart, Jennifer Ryan; Lockhart, Thomas
Philosophical studies,
12/2022, Letnik:
179, Številka:
12
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Constitutivism holds that an account of what a thing is yields those normative standards to which that thing is by nature subject. We articulate a minimal form of constitutivism that we call
formal, ...non-epistemological constitutivism
which diverges from orthodox versions of constitutivism in two main respects. First: whereas orthodox versions of constitutivism hold that those ethical norms to which people are by nature subject are sui generis because of their special capacity to motivate action and legitimate criticism, we argue that these features are compatible with treating these norms as of a piece with those ‘formal’ natural-historical norms which can be used to assess living things. Second: unlike orthodox versions of constitutivism, our version does not seek to use a non-normative account of that kind of being which we are as a means of identifying those normative claims to which we are are by nature subject. We then indicate how our position can afford us the resources to address some of the familiar difficulties that face cognitivism in ethics.
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