The Moral Problem

242 Pages·1994·30.103 MB·English

by  Michael Smith

THE
MORAL
PROBLEM
il
________
MICHAEL SMITH
Philosophical Theory
0
'Extraordinarily clear and well organized. Reading this book takes you right
into the centre of the intense contemporary debate on moral theory. Smith
knows exactly what he is doing, and slowly puts together a redoubtable
argument for the broadly realist position he favours/ Jonathan Dancy,
University of Keele
Ά marvelous volume: it is not only an important contribution to philosophical
ethics, but also an exciting introduction to the subject. The book is an excellent
model of how to do philosophy, a model I hope students (and their teachers)
will adopt for themselves/ Gilbert Harman, Princeton University
'An outstanding and ambitious work, it serves at once as a lucid introduction
to meta-ethics and a wide-ranging inquiry into some of its hardest problems.'
Brad Hooker, University of Reading
'Vigorous, engaging, and marvelously sophisticated, Michael Smith's The
Moral Problem faces head-on the challenge of reconciling morality's
motivational relevance with its claims to objectivity and categorical force -
without abandoning a Humean account of human action and without
metaphysical extravagance.' Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, University of
North Carolina
This widely anticipated book offers a systematic introduction to and striking
analysis of the central issues animating current debate in moral philosophy. It
will be of interest to anyone with a serious interest in the philosophical
foundations of ethics.
Topics discussed include: realist vs. anti-realist accounts of moral truth,
cognitivist vs. expressivist accounts of moral judgement; internalist vs.
externalist accounts of the relation between moral judgement and the will;
Humean vs. anti-Humean theories of motivation; and the debate between
those who think that morality is a system of hypothetical imperatives and those
who think that moral requirements are categorical imperatives.
Michael Smith
The author is SeniorSH^SS^ Hlosophy Program, Research School of
Social Sciences, at th< < Jional University. He taught previously at
the University of Oxfo.&^rinceton University and Monash University. He is
the author of several essays in ethics and moral psychology.
Printed in Great Britain
ISBN O-bBl-lTBHL-fl
BLACKWELL
Oxford UK & Cambridge USA
The Moral Problem
PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY
SERIES EDITORS
John McDowell, Philip Pettit and Crispin Wright
For Truth in Semantics
Anthony Appiah
Abstract Particulars
Keith Campbell
Tractarian Semantics
Peter Carruthers
Truth and Objectivity
Brian Ellis
The Dynamics of Belief
Peter Forrest
Abstract Objects
Bob Hale
Facts and Meaning
Jane Heal
Conditionals
Frank Jackson
Sense and Certainty
Marie McGinn
Reality and Representation
David Papineau
Facts and the Function of Truth
Huw Price
Moral Dilemmas
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Unnatural Doubts
Michael Williamson
Identity and Discrimination
Timothy Williamson
The Moral Problem
MICHAEL SMITH
BLACKWELL
JB
P u b I i s h e r s
Copyright © Michael Smith 1994
The right of Michael Smith to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 1994
First published in USA 1995
Reprinted 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001
Blackwell Publishers Ltd
108 Cowley Road
Oxford OX4 1JF, UK
Blackwell Publishers Inc.
350 Main Street
Malden, Massachusetts 02148, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes
of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding
or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Smith, Michael (Michael A.)
The moral problem/Michael Smith
p. cm. — (Philosophical theory)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-631-18941-6 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-631-19246-8 (pbk)
1. Ethics. 2. Rationalism. I. Title. II. Series
BJ103I.S64 1994 94-6156
170—dc20 CIP
Typeset in Baskerville on 11/13pt
by Best-set Typesetter Ltd, Hong Kong
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
This book is printed on acid-free paper
For my parents Phyl and Roy Smith
Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint
extracts from the following previously published material by
Michael Smith: ‘Should We Believe in Emotivism?’ in Graham
Macdonald and Crispin Wright, eds, Fact, Science and Morality:
Essays on A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic, 1986, Basil
Blackwell; ‘The Humean Theory of Motivation’, Mind, 1987,
Oxford University Press; ‘Dispositional Theories of Value’,
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume, 1989;
‘Realism’ in Peter Singer, ed., A Companion to Ethics, 1991, Basil
Blackwell; ‘Valuing: Desiring or Believing?’ in David Charles and
Kathleen Lennon, eds, Reduction, Explanation, and Realism, 1992,
Oxford University Press; and Objectivity and Moral Realism: on
the Significance of the Phenomenology of Moral Experience’
and ‘Colour, Transparency, Mind-Independence’, both in John
Haldane and Crispin Wright, eds, Reality, Representation and Pro­
jection, 1993, Oxford University Press.
Contents
Preface x
1 What is the Moral Problem? 1
1.1 Normative Ethics vs. Meta-Ethics 1
1.2 Meta-Ethics Today 3
1.3 The Moral Problem 4
1.4 Towards a Solution to the Moral Problem 13
1.5 Summary and Preview 14
2 The Expressivist Challenge 16
2.1 Descriptivism vs. Expressivism 16
2.2 An Apparent Dilemma Facing Descriptivists 17
2.3 Ayer’s Objection to Non-Naturalism 20
2.4 Non-Naturalism and Epistemology 21
2.5 Ayer’s Objection to Naturalism 25
2.6 The Open Question Argument and
Metaphysical Naturalism 27
2.7 The Open Question Argument and
Definitional Naturalism 35
2.8 What are the Platitudes Surrounding our
Moral Concepts? 39
2.9 Subjective vs. Non-Subjective Definitional
Naturalism 41
2.10 Definitional Naturalism as the Search for
Network Analyses of our Moral Concepts 44
2.11 How Network Analyses can be Defective:
The Permutation Problem 48
2.12 Can We Provide Network Analyses of
Moral Terms? 54
2.13 Can We Avoid Ayer’s Dilemma? 56
2.14 Summary and Preview 58
3 The Externalist Challenge 60
3.1 Internalism vs. Externalism 60
3.2 Rationalism as a Conceptual Claim vs.
Rationalism as a Substantive Claim 63
3.3 Brink’s ‘Amoralist’ Challenge 66
3.4 Reply to Brink’s Claim that Amoralists Really
Make Moral Judgments 68
3.5 An Argument for the Practicality Requirement 71
3.6 Foot’s ‘Etiquette’ Challenge 77
3.7 Reply to Foot’s Claim that Morality and
Etiquette are Analogous 80
3.8 Reply to Foot’s Objection to the Rationalists’
Conceptual Claim 84
3.9 An Argument for the Rationalists’
Conceptual Claim 85
3.10 Summary and Preview 91
4 The Humean Theory of Motivation 92
4.1 Two Principles 92
4.2 Motivating Reasons vs. Normative Reasons 94
4.3 A Preliminary Objection from Nagel 98
4.4 Why Should We Believe the Humean Theory? 101
4.5 Desires and Phenomenology 104
4.6 Desires, Directions of Fit and Dispositions 111
4.7 Desires, Directions of Fit, Goals and
Motivating Reasons 116
4.8 Summary of the Entire Argument So Far
and Preview 125
5 An Anti-Humean Theory of Normative Reasons 130
5.1 From Motivating Reasons to Normative Reasons 130
5.2 The Intentional and the Deliberative 131