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Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint An Introduction to Moral Philosophy B C W Y ATHERINE ILSON METAETHICS FROM A FIRST PERSON STANDPOINT Catherine Wilson is the Anniversary Professor of Philosophy at the University of York. Catherine has worked in the history of philosophy, moral theory and aesthetics and has taught and published extensively in these fields. Her publications include A Very Short Introduction to Epicureanism, Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity (2008 and 2010), Moral Animals: Ideals and Constraints in Moral Theory (2004 and 2007) and (with C. Wilson and D. Clarke), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Early Modern Europe (2011). Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint An Introduction to Moral Philosophy Catherine Wilson http://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2016 Catherine Wilson This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the author (but not in any way that suggests that she endorses you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Catherine Wilson, Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/ OBP.0087 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit http://www.openbookpublishers.com/isbn/9781783741984#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0 All external links were active on 08 January 2016 and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at http://www.openbookpublishers.com/isbn/9781783741984#resources ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-198-4 ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-199-1 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-200-4 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-201-1 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-202-8 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0087 Cover image: Nick Jewell, ‘Tiree Perspective’ (2008), CC BY 4.0. https://www.flickr. com/photos/macjewell/2736570618 All paper used by Open Book Publishers is SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative), PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) and Forest Stewardship Council(r)(FSC(r) certified. Printed in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia by Lightning Source for Open Book Publishers (Cambridge, UK). Dedicated to Caroline, Willy, and Harry, my siblings—and friends for life. Contents Introduction and Acknowledgements 1 Enquiry I 5 The Enquirer finds that the moral opinions and practices of mankind form a confusing jumble in which, while strong convictions reign, it is hard to see why any moral claims can claim to be true or to be known by anyone. She decides to doubt everything she has assumed hitherto about moral good and moral evil and her understanding of them. Enquiry II 17 The Enquirer decides to doubt whether any actions, situations, events, and persons can really be good or bad, right or wrong, morally permissible or morally impermissible. Enquiry III 31 The Enquirer continues to ponder the notion of a value-free universe. She comes to the realisation that the world seems to be saturated experientially and linguistically with values. She entertains the possibility that a race of Destroyers of Illusion who use language differently has discovered that values are unreal and that there are only likings and dislikings. She discovers nevertheless that she does know at least one fact about what is good. Enquiry IV 39 The Enquirer discovers that, as far as her self-interest is concerned, there are certain things that are good and bad for her and therefore things she ought and ought not to do. The Enquirer discovers that she can also know something about what is in the self-interest of other people. Enquiry V 53 The Enquirer discovers that she knows some of the ‘Norms of Civility’ dictating how Person 1 ought to behave towards Person 2 in certain typical situations and wonders why these norms are observed and whether it is always good to observe them. Enquiry VI 63 The Enquirer determines what makes a relationship between Person 1 and Person 2 morally significant and investigates the origins of hermoral feelings and attitudes. She then discovers that prudence and self-interest sometimes have a moral dimension insofar as they concern the relations between a Present Self and a Future Self. Enquiry VII 75 The Enquirer discovers an analogy between the Present Self’s natural and moral concern for the Future Self and the Narrow Self’s natural and moral concern for the Extended Self of kith and kin. She goes on to ponder whether she has any natural concern for Strangers and why she ought to care about them. Enquiry VIII 87 The Enquirer returns to a consideration of the position of the Destroyers of Illusion to try to determine whether moral claims are nothing more than claims about the likings and dislikings of the person who asserts them, or nothing more than expressions of attitudes and the issuing of invitations and commands, without any epistemic significance. She comes to the conclusion that the Destroyers lack a coherent position, and she goes on to consider how to think about moral norms and demands and the possible motives and reasons for being moral. Enquiry IX 95 The Enquirer ponders the questions of whether there are moral truths, whether there is a method for discovering them, and what the reach and limits of moral knowledge might be. She considers in what sense there has been moral progress and an increase in moral knowledge. Summary 107 Endnotes 115 Suggestions for Further Study 117 Introduction At every level of philosophical enquiry into moral theory, from the introductory to the advanced, the question of the objectivity or subjectivity of moral judgements resurfaces. Are there moral truths—or only opinions and beliefs? If there are such truths, how can we come to know them? Can one coherently deny that any moral opinion is better than any other? And could one simply turn one’s back on morality and, if so, what would this involve? Metaethics is the study of these and related questions. Unlike the practitioners of ‘normative ethics,’ the metaethicist need not take a position on what anyone may do, or ought to do or is forbidden to do, or on what is morally right or wrong. He or she is interested rather in how moral language and moral thought work, no matter what the contents of anyone’s set of moral beliefs may be or what their practices amount to. My aim in this book is to address the central questions of metaethics and to give serious answers to them. In writing it, I wanted to present a coherent and positive argument for the existence of moral knowledge that would be persuasive in the face of the possibility that morality is both a natural phenomenon and a human invention. At the same time, I was dissatisfied with many textbook presentations of the ‘isms’ of moral theory. It is all too easy to lose one’s way in a forest of taxonomy and then to abandon all hope and fall back on dogmatism or nihilism. I had in mind a freer sort of enquiry and one that would decisively eliminate both of those options. It occurred to me that there was a model that might prove useful. Facing an array of competing claims and systems, and saddled with a scholastic vocabulary that had long supported debate and discussion without answering any fundamental questions about the world, a philosopher had once responded by adopting, first, a posture of scepticism—indeed of hyperbolic doubt. Professing to reject all previous systems, he attempted to © Catherine Wilson, CC BY http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0087.10

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