Moral Relativism and Reasons for Action

Robert Streiffer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000080254
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Originally published in 2003, this book examines moral relativism and the author discusses the main arguments for Appraiser Relativism and Agent Relativism. The final chapter of the book discusses the implication of some recent developments in metaethics and develops a theory of reasons for action based on the way in which an action can be good as an alternative to the desire-based, agent-centred account critiqued in the earlier chapters.

Chapter 1

Appraiser Relativism and the Reliability of Our Linguistic Intuitions

1 APPRAISER RELATIVISM DEFINED

1.1 Moral relativism takes many forms, and people are motivated to adopt the different forms for different reasons. One prominent form is Appraiser Relativism, according to which the proposition expressed by a moral sentence varies from context to context. Appraiser Relativism is primarily motivated by the argument that it provides the best explanation of the intractability we see surrounding fundamental moral disagreements. Those who object to this argument concede that if Appraiser Relativism were true, it would provide an explanation of intractable moral disagreement, but they argue that its explanation conflicts with our linguistic intuitions about when people are contradicting one another. It is commonly assumed that this objection, which might be considered the standard objection, is a conclusive rebuttal of this argument for Appraiser Relativism.

In fact, the standard objection is inconclusive. The two most prominent contemporary Appraiser Relativists, Gilbert Harman and David Wong, have suggested a number of strategies for explaining away our linguistic intuitions, and these strategies have yet to be challenged in the literature. In this chapter, I will examine these strategies in detail, develop a general test for determining the reliability of the relevant class of linguistic intuitions, and argue that the intuitions that conflict with Appraiser Relativism are, in all likelihood, reliable. Moreover, I will argue that the class of linguistic intuitions that undermine Appraiser Relativism is much larger than has previously been noticed. And finally, I argue that even if we were to grant the truth of Appraiser Relativism, it would still not provide us with any explanation whatsoever of the intractability of fundamental moral disagreement. I conclude with some remarks on how my arguments raise doubts not only about the standard argument for Appraiser Relativism, but also about Appraiser Relativism itself.

1.2 Given a sentence, S, we can prefix It is not the case that’ to S to form what I will call its syntactic negation. The distinctive claim of the Appraiser Relativist is that for any moral sentence and its syntactic negation, it is possible for both to be asserted truly.¹ In order to avoid contradiction, then, the Appraiser Relativist needs to tell a story according to which the logical form of moral sentences differs from their grammatical form, and the most plausible story for the Appraiser Relativist to tell is that the moral properties figuring in propositions expressed by moral sentences have an extra argument place, the value of which varies from context to context. So, although one might have thought that the property of being immoral was a one-place property, which a particular action either has or does not have, in fact, there is no such one-place property. Rather, there is the two-place relation of being immoral relative to a morality, and any particular action bears this relation to some moralities, but not to others. Compare: there is no one-place property of being tall, which a particular person either has or does not have. Rather, there is the two-place relation of being tall relative to a comparison class. A person can bear this relation of being tall to some comparison classes (e.g., jockeys), and not bear this relation to other comparison classes (e.g., basketball players).

Two versions of Appraiser Relativism are prominent in the literature. Shifting from the material mode to the formal mode, and letting

(S)	Lying is immoral.

be our representative moral sentence, we can define the first version of Appraiser Relativism as follows:

Speaker Relativism: If M is the morality belonging to the speaker in context C, then the proposition that (S) expresses in C is that lying is immoral relative to M.

This version is called “Speaker Relativism” because it claims that the morality that figures in the proposition expressed is always the morality of the speaker.²

The second version of Appraiser Relativism can be defined as follows:

Salience Relativism: If M is the morality salient to the speaker in context C, then the proposition that (S) expresses in ? is that lying is immoral relative to M.

This version is called “Salience Relativism” because it claims that the morality that figures in the proposition expressed is always the morality salient to the speaker.³ When I use the term “Appraiser Relativism,” I intend that to include both Speaker Relativism and Salience Relativism.

A few remarks about the definitions are in order. First, I am not going to say much about what a morality is, or about what marks one morality rather than another as belonging to or being salient to a speaker. I will just be using moralities as placeholders for whatever it is that a relativist believes that moral properties are relative to. For all I have said, the morality that figures in the proposition a speaker asserts might be a function of the moral attitudes predominant in his society, a function of what would be in the interests of his society, a function of his own moral attitudes, or a function of what would be in his own best interests. On such a broad understanding of what might count as a morality, Speaker Relativism includes what is usually known as subjectivism, as well as the more common conventionalist version of Appraiser Relativism that states that the morality that figures in the proposition asserted is a function of the norms of the speakers society. Second, it is important to realize that these definitions are about the propositions actually expressed by moral sentences, and they are not about which propositions speakers intend to express using moral sentences. Appraiser Relativism is not itself a claim about speakers intent.⁴

Both Speaker Relativism and Salience Relativism are forms of cognitive appraiser relativism. They are cognitive theories because, according to them, (S) expresses a proposition (even though it will express different propositions in different contexts). The obvious contrast here is with noncognitivism, according to which (S) does not express a proposition, but rather expresses a prescription or an emotion. Both versions of relativism are forms of what David Lyons calls appraiser relativism (Lyons 1976, 211–212) because, they state that the morality that figures in the proposition expressed is determined by facts about the context of the speaker doing the appraising, rather than by facts about the context of the agent performing the action that the speaker appraises. Appraiser Relativism needs to be sharply.distinguished from what Lyons calls agent relativism, which states that the morality that figures in the proposition expressed is determined by facts about the agent who is being appraised. Thus, the view that it would be wrong for an agent to perform an action just in case that action would be prohibited by the agent’s morality is a form of Agent Relativism, not Appraiser Relativism. The important fact to note is that an Agent Relativist cannot try to explain persistent moral disagreement by claiming that both parties to the disagreement are speaking truly. For according to the Agent Relativist, if one person asserts “Smith’s lying was immoral,” and another asserts “It is not the case that Smith’s lying was immoral,” then they cannot both be speaking truly. Smith’s morality either prohibits that act of lying or it does not.

2 THE ALLEGED EXPLANATION OF THE INTRACTABILITY OF MORAL DISAGREEMENTS

2.1 How does the Appraiser Relativist explain the intractable disagreements we see surrounding fundamental moral issues? Appraiser Relativists are often sketchy on the details, but presumably their strategy will be to, first, identify some goal that people who are engaged in moral disagreements are trying to achieve, second, show that those people cannot meet that goal, and third, show that those people are unaware that they cannot meet that goal; this is what explains why they keep disagreeing.

According to the Appraiser Relativist, what is the goal of people who are engaged in moral disagreement? Each party to the disagreement is trying to establish the truth of his own assertion. But if both parties think that their assertions are inconsistent with one another, then they cannot believe they have accomplished that goal until the assertion of the other party is shown to be false. Thus, one of their goals is to show that the assertion of the other party is false. However, according to the Appraiser Relativist, this cannot be done because both parties to these disagreements are in fact speaking truly. How is that possible? According to the Appraiser Relativist, the proposition expressed by a moral sentence varies from context to context, and so it follows that for any moral sentence and its syntactic negation, it is possible for both sentences to be asserted truly.⁵

The Appraiser Relativist then argues that it is precisely in those intractable moral disagreements, where the parties seem reasonable and well-informed, that we often find two people speaking truly, even though one person is asserting a moral sentence and the other person is asserting that sentence’s syntactic negation. In short, the Appraiser Relativist’s explanation is that as long as both parties adhere to the view that their assertions are contradictory, neither party will consider the disagreement resolved until each one has shown the other’s assertion to be false. But because both assertions are true, this cannot be done.

The question I will consider, then, is whether the Appraiser Relativist’s explanation is the best explanation of the intractable moral disagreements that we see surrounding fundamental moral issues.

One can object to an explanation in two ways. First, one can object by arguing that the truth of the explanans conflicts with other claims we find independently plausible. For example, it may be granted that the trajectories of medium-sized dry goods moving at slow speeds would be explained by Newtonian physics. Nonetheless, because Newtonian physics conflicts with other claims for which we have independent evidence, we have independent grounds for rejecting any explanatory claims made on its behalf. This is the form that the standard objection to Appraiser Relativism takes. Second, one can object to an explanation by arguing that even if the explanans were true, its truth would still not explain the truth of the explanandum in question. For example, it may be granted that the claim that I am wearing a tie does not conflict with other claims we find independently plausible. Nonetheless, we may doubt that the truth of the claim that I am wearing a tie is what explains why I have hazel eyes. The truth of the claim that I am wearing a tie does not stand in any explanatory relation to the truth of the claim that I have hazel eyes.

Let us now turn to an objection of the first kind: that Appraiser Relativism conflicts with other claims we find independently plausible.

3 SOME COUNTERINTUITIVE IMPLICATIONS OF APPRAISER RELATIVISM

3.1 Many philosophers have become frustrated with the inability of noncognitivism to explain how moral sentences figure in truth-ascriptions and belief-ascriptions, and so they have turned to some form of cognitivist relativism as an attractive alternative. James Dreier, for example, emphasizes this advantage of his version of Appraiser Relativism:

On my proposed analysis, sentences containing moral terms straightforwardly express propositions—though which propositions they express will vary with the context. So I can simply say that such sentences embed into the relevant contexts just as any other indexical sentences do. (Dreier 1990, 15)

Setting aside the question of whether noncognitivism can explain how moral sentences are embedded into the relevant contexts, I would like to point out here that supposing that moral sentences embed into the relevant contexts just as any other indexical sentences do yields highly counterintuitive implications. To illustrate, first, I will consider four counterintuitive implications shared by both Speaker Relativism and Salience Relativism, and second, I will examine one counterintuitive implication specific to each form of relativism.

The first counterintuitive difficulty common to both Speaker Relativism and Salience Relativism is the standard objection that they conflict with our intuitions about when people’s assertions are inconsistent. Whenever two people argue and one of them utters a moral sentence that does not, on its face, contain any context sensitive terms such as indexicals or demonstratives, and the other person utters that sentence’s syntactic negation, it seems quite obvious that the two people are contradicting one another. Lyons puts the point nicely:

The judgments made [by people engaging in moral disagreement] appear to be logically incompatible…. Appearances can be misleading, of course, but the relevant considerations are not negligible; they involve not merely surface ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Original Half Title
• Chapter 1 Appraiser Relativism and the Reliability of Our Linguistic Intuitions
• Chapter 2 Agent Relativism and Reasons for Action
• Chapter 3 Reasons for Action and the Ways of Being Good
• Afterword
• Endnotes
• Bibliography
• Index