Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy

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by  Catherine Wilson

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
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© 2016 Catherine Wilson
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Catherine Wilson, Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint: An Introduction to Moral
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Dedicated to Caroline, Willy, and Harry,
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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
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