R. M. Hare. In this case, the emphasis would be on whether or not one or another part of current folk morality
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survives the demand that we be prepared to universalize its prescriptions.
I start the business of this chapter by showing how this method of interconnecting ethical and descriptive accounts
enables us to identify each ethical property with some descriptive property. I
157
See e.g. Hare, Freedom and Reason, ch. 6.
140 ANALYTICAL DESCRIPTIVISM
then contrast the descriptivism I am defending with Cornell realism , and proceed to discuss what our version of
descriptivism should say about the open question argument, and about the direction problem (the sense in which
moral judgement points towards or away from action).
Identifying the Ethical Properties
Using Lewis on Theoretical Terms
We identify the ethical properties by applying the method of defining theoretical terms developed by David Lewis,
drawing on work by F. P. Ramsey and Rudolf Carnap, to mature folk morality, the theory on which current folk
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morality will converge under critical reflection.
Let M be mature folk morality. Imagine it written out as a long conjunction with the moral predicates written in
property name style. For example, Killing someone is typically wrong becomes Killing typically has the property of
being wrong . Replace each distinct moral property term by a distinct variable to give M(x , x , . . . ). Then ("x ) . . .
1 2 1
M(x , . . . ) is the Ramsey sentence of M, and
1
("x ) . . . (y ) . . . (M(y , . . . ) iff x = y & x = y . . . )
1 1 1 1 1 2 2
is the modified Ramsey sentence of M which says that there is a unique realization of M.
If moral functionalism is true, M and the modified Ramsey sentence of M say the same thing. For that is what holding
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that the ethical concepts are fixed by their place in the network of mature folk morality comes to. Fairness is what
fills the fairness role; rightness is what fills the rightness role; and so on. We can now say what it is for some action A
to be, say, right, as follows:
(R) A is right iff ("x ) . . . (A has x &(y ) . . . (M(y , . . . ) iff x = y &. . . ))
1 r 1 1 1 1
158
See Lewis, How to Define Theoretical Terms .
159
Or at least it is if it is part of folk theory that there is a unique realization. This assumption deserves further discussion.
ANALYTICAL DESCRIPTIVISM 141
where x replaced being right in M. We now have our account of when A is right: it is right just if it has the property
r
that plays the rightness role as specified by the right-hand side of (R), a property we can be confident is a purely
descriptive one, given the unrestricted, global, a priori supervenience of the ethical on the descriptive. Clearly, the same
procedure, with appropriate modifications, will yield an account when A is good, just, fair, bad, and so on. For all the
ethical predicates, thick or thin, we have an account of their truth- or application-conditions. What is more, we have an
account in purely descriptive terms, because the modified Ramsey sentence is obtained by replacing all the ethical
terms by bound variables.
This in itself does not tell us what rightness, the property, is, and the same goes for goodness, etc. It is a story about
truth-conditions, but does not tell us about the metaphysics of rightness. In particular, it leaves open two possibilities:
that rightness is the (first-order) descriptive, possibly disjunctive property that plays the rightness role, the realizer
property as it is called in the corresponding debate in the philosophy of mind, or that it is the second-order property of
having the property that plays the rightness role, the role property as it is called in the corresponding debate in the
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philosophy of mind. However, there seems a clear reason for favouring the first view. We want rightness to be what
makes an action right, not in the causal sense but in the sense of being what ought to be aimed at. Now what we
should aim at is not doing what is right qua what is right. I should rescue someone from a fire because if I don't they
will die, not because that is the right thing to do. True, being motivated by an act's being right is better than being
motivated by the desire to get one's picture in the papers. All the same, what ought to motivate us, and what we should
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value and pursue, is not the moral status of our actions per se, but the goods that confer that moral status. But from
the perspective of moral functionalism, the choice between role property and realizer property is the choice between
the moral property per se, and what makes something right in the sense of being the rightness part of the best solution
to the equations of mature folk morality; that is, the property which is such that putting its name in place of x in
r
160
See e.g. Jackson and Pettit, Functionalism and Broad Content .
161
See e.g. Smith, The Moral Problem, 74 6.
142 ANALYTICAL DESCRIPTIVISM
("x ) . . . (y ) . . . (M(y , . . . ) if f x = y & x = y . . . ) makes it true. Or near enough true. We should not expect perfect
1 1 1 1 1 2 2
solutions here any more than in physics where we found what the term atom denoted by finding something that near
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enough satisfied atomic theory. To illustrate with a controversial hypothesis, suppose it turns out that the best
solution to the equations of mature folk morality, the solution that makes them true (near enough), includes x is right
if and only if x maximizes expected hedonic value , and x is good if and only if x has positive expected hedonic value ,
then the claim is that we should identify rightness with maximizing expected hedonic value, and goodness with positive
expected hedonic value, because they will then be what we value and ought to aim at.
This means that there is a second sense in which moral functionalism is ecumenical, and so is a schema for viewing what
goes on when we seek a moral theory, rather than a substantive theory in itself. In the last chapter we focused on the
point that moral functionalism can allow that different parts of the network are more or less fundamental, in the sense
of being the part from which the rest can be derived when we seek mature folk morality. But if rightness, to stick with
this example, should be viewed as the first-order property that occupies the rightness role, then we have two questions [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]