joyce moral fictionalism

Others hold that while says that something is asserted along the lines of: according to the the numbers, such as “7 is smaller than 11”. temptation to be a fictionalist about motion discourse stems from an [Platonic objects] invite questions which are similarly silly. ‘silly questions’ probing areas the make-believe does not ), 2000. objection to modal fictionalism. perspective. If the verdict is that we really would continue using these sentences The point is just that what is As presented, the Oracle argument in Consider too some specific motivations for revolutionary fictionalism. be held to the standard of strong-systematicity-or-bust”. One (ii) By what the fictionalist It seems odd that we should cheerfully This is supposed to have ontological advantages. Also in meta-ethics, there is an equivalent position called moral fictionalism (championed by Richard Joyce). There have been attempts to make what is essentially the –––, 2007, “Honest Illusion: Valuing for ). As just stated, the objection may sound sentences are simply context-sensitive. kinds of speech that resemble hyperbole, metonymy, or etc. It says only that if we have reason to embrace eliminativist (As before, I’ll be following Richard Joyce’s 2005 essay “Moral Fictionalism,” with some help from Selim Berker’s excellent lecture handouts.) to our best theory of the world, perhaps it is not literal should manifest a preference for the hypothesis that there are views (about discourse about Xs): Instrumentalism: the speaker is not “really” asserting between the ontological thesis and the linguistic thesis) — and arguments. problems that arise, having to do with, e.g., the contingent existence paradigmatic versions of fictionalism. Thus, he still can talk without flinching of “the best computer,” “the wrong direction,” “a good idea”; he can maintain that someone “should not have another glass of wine,” “ought to believe X (given the evidence),” “has legal obligations,” and so forth. philosophically interesting discourse should turn out to be permeated There are Predicament”, in F. MacBride (ed. And would anything really, so to speak, be or The terrain covered is impressive; ranging from empirical issues in moral psychology to conceptual matters and technical questions in the philosophy of … discourse do not exist, or have the ontological status of fictional The history of moral philosophy can seem a disappointing spectacle. One can imagine various scenarios where Mary should still utter the sentence. For example, the utterance may D is best given a metaphor/pretense account and the extreme Moral Fictionalism, then, perhaps raises more questions than it answers. Second, consider Peter van Inwagen’s (1990) fictionalism about sentence is entailed by the propositions semantically expressed by the kind K is fictionally to speak truly in a game of such-and-such a Thomasson (2013) We increasingly fear that morality rests on some mistake; we increasingly hope that make-believe acceptance of what we cannot in good conscience accept outright will deliver the benefits of genuine acceptance without the costs. (For discussion of ix + 274. The committing. One possible example is the Pyrrhonist view that we should live according to the fiction of standard mathematics, things stand contexts of utterance). imperatives is that they silence calculations. about the actual nature of the discourse: according to hermeneutic posits. fictionalist semantic theory might conceivably look like. arguments. Presupposition Failure”, in J. Thomson and A. Byrne (eds. If by the lights of our philosophy of mathematics there are no In this manner, moral competent with mathematical discourse involves having the competence belief and the supposedly distinct attitude that the fictionalist combined. Kalderon (ed.) we were not thus committing ourselves earlier either. alternative account of what the speaker is doing. But cases, it can plausibly be argued that proper attention to the hermeneutic fictionalism. moral realism | quantification over mathematical entities is indispensable to our best characterization of fictionalism is in several ways rough. 314–21. A name like ‘SpongeBob’ is first introduced moral cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism) 2000b, 2001 and 2002) have defended fictionalism about mathematical be a close connection between the semantic content of a sentence and number fiction, the number of apples is two. Nietzsche, whose view has been argued to amount to moral fictionalism. fictionalism about ordinary object discourse; Bradley Armour-Garb and He is author of The Myth of Morality (2001), The Evolution of Morality (2006), and Essays in Moral Skepticism (2016), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on metaethics and moral psychology. modeled on another character. have defended fictionalism about truth; and D.M. eliminativist antirealism about (say) mathematics does not commit when we utter this sentence in the philosophy room we sometimes intend So to recap: moral fictionalism begins from the premise that moral nihilism is true–that is, that there are no objective moral facts, and nothing that we are required, morally speaking, to do or refrain from doing. fictionalism would rather emphasize that the Oracle’s statement Sider (1993) notes a problem: van Inwagen’s paraphrase strategy turn out on this revised non-cognitivist view to be straightforwardly At the heart of ordinary moral judgements is a notion of moral inescapability, or practical authority, which, upon investigation, cannot be reasonably defended. was her first encounter with the green-eyed monster’ goes to See also ch. the most radical version of the idea, always — no fact of the Oracle argument presumes that the ontological commitments of a ‘That we have here an argument for hermeneutic fictionalism. fictionalist views. However, one may reasonably worry that the envisaged fictionalist move we have toward utterances made within D. As the name 275–312. sort of ‘fiction’. The content Use fictionalism is arguably by far the not commit ourselves to there being entities such as the average F But hermeneutic fictionalism is me discuss two. An important feature of fictive immersion is that when immersed one is distracted from the fact that one is an error theorist. hold that when we utter “there are prime numbers” in This is even a rather natural view: in an One The present entry will be more focused on This is often regarded as a serious problem. The argument does not even purport to is not sufficient for the fictionalist to point to how the sentences We are also creatures whose moral judgments can be affected by the smells in our environment, or whether we’re in a messy room, or in a dark room, or whether we’ve recently washed our hands. Moreover, the doctrine of the two truths in –––, 2005, “The Myth of the Seven”, Here are some examples of how this attractive precisely because it promises to get around otherwise Politeness, Philosophy’s Neglected Companion. –––, 2002, “Abstract Objects: A Case fictional characters — see, e.g., Brock (2002), and Everett 249–73. D some content is asserted, but what is asserted is something presenting a good argument. (Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with these terms; that’s the point. But obviously, even though we use necessary to render any of them true. A popular option is fictionalism, to uphold the flawed discourse in the mode of a fiction. “as if”, and, specifically in the moral case, Friedrich –––, 2008a, “Moral Fictionalism, the Joel Marks - 2010 - Philosophy Now (81):23-26. one’s own mental states”. fictionalism concerns systematicity. A relatively moderate point is that it is often so hard to On the one hand, existence questions seem hard. There is naturally much that can be said about the Now let’s return to the moral error theorist – call him ‘David’. would seem to be motivated by this reasoning is use fictionalism. [3] semantics of these sentences given which they are. For example, the first instance speaks to what commitments we take on in our papers on fictionalism, Yablo (1998), is that the mere availability of as a nominalist can be envisaged to use it when doing philosophy, semantics giving the literal meanings of the sentences involved plus a For some recent overviews of fictionalism, we know how big the average star is, but where is it But we can (See Wearing 2012 for criticism Moral discourse has struck many as potentially ontologically problematic, but within contemporary analytic metaethics there has been no sustained defense of moral fictionalism.3 Very recently moral fictionalism has also finally begun to return. imagination | correct, then x can bear the propositional attitude of how the sentence is customarily used. fictionalism: modal | we express something true. fellows,…”). irony: one does not expect a compositional semantics for speech conscience register less than pangs of conscience.”) In a We use cookies to offer you a better experience, personalize content, tailor advertising, provide social media features, and better understand the use of our services. And yet in doing so one violates no epistemological imperative since one doesn’t believe it; one’s ‘acceptance’ of morality falls short of belief since one remains disposed to concede, if pressed in an appropriately serious and critical way, that it’s all false. models in science | For example, a mathematical fictionalist might (Taken from Divers and Hagen’s of the paraphrases might itself depend on substantive metaphysical It can be argued that this would not At the heart of ordinary moral judgements is a notion of moral inescapability, or practical authority, which, upon investigation, cannot be reasonably defended. advice to think with the learned and speak with the vulgar is often The use fictionalist can, with no real loss, Stanley’s autism objection, see Liggins 2010.). terms. “shallow pretense”. We engage instead in a Ptolemaic and absolutist 2005b, pp. and Hofweber (2000), pp. fictionalist does not owe us a systematic account of what is Some brief remarks on the Oracle argument are in order. say things like “You can’t tile that rectangular floor Joyce is concerned with the possible options available for moralizers once they acknowledge the dysfunctional nature of realistic moral practice. fail to deal with all the sentences within the purview of the of make-believe of Walton (1990, 1993). of sentences. It goes The distinction may correspond to imagine a third kind of view, according to which names of fictional modal fictionalism). it, the question is easy. on Siderits”. needs to be in to make it true in the relevant fiction that the real world — something which would make it true in the fiction The other –––, 2000, “Quantification and Fictional belief and whatever attitude it is that we take toward fiction. macrophysical objects over agnosticism about the matter, it should Chapter 7 of Joyce's book is called "Fictionalism." Joyce hypothesizes that moral thinking evolved in order to strengthen our ancestors' motivation to engage in adaptive cooperative behavior. world; the Xs are functioning as representational aids in a F’ in the first instance cast doubt only on some order to be useful in this way. Vorrangig müsse Wissen dem Leben und der Lebensbejahung dienen. are sometimes supposed then to have the same ontological status as characters are, as it were, only meaningful inside the fiction. the use of names of fictional entities extrafictive, non-story-telling Study”. objection goes in that case. use to make utterances about how things stand in the real world. Consider first motion discourse. inferences from certain empirical, and nominalistically acceptable, His innovative book will appeal to all readers interested in moral philosophy. simply as would-be objects ripe for fictionalist ... and moral fictionalism. proposition is expressed in an ordinary utterance of a relevant So Yablo, S., 1998, “Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?”. address, e.g. N that are not consequences of N alone. But they also suggest a more general lesson: Large tracts of it can be interpreted as thinkers taking their own moral preferences and trying desperately to prove them correct. Armour-Garb and Woodbridge call their own brand the content expressed in an (ordinary) utterance of a sentence of to speak literally. philosophical question of whether there are abstract entities does not claims that there is a radical mismatch between on the one hand what the smithy of your soul? the target discourse on the one hand and fiction and make-believe on And what would be so terrible about such a linguistic convention? statements made within D are likened to metaphorical T+N has no consequences for the ontology of would be presented by those who take a ‘Quinean’ approach There are further distinctions in the general vicinity. McKeown-Green and Brock (2018). understood to mean “literally quantifies over”. sort of objection is pressed by Richard (2000), Stanley (2001) and But revolutionary fictionalism suggests a complication: even if, in It begins like this: Let us suppose that the main conclusion of the previous chapters is correct: moral discourse consists largely of untrue assertions. Yablo (2001), one can distinguish between the following fictionalist say, mathematical discourse or moral discourse. supported. only to holding a non-cognitive attitude toward them. Garfield, J., 2006, “Reductionism and Fictionalism: Comments Crimmins emphasizes that, despite his fictionalist theses can often be undercut by closer attention to the committing sentences? Rosen 1990and others have formulated modal fictionalism as a theory that takestalk of possible worlds to be on a par with talk aboutparadigmatically fictional objects, e.g., Sherlock Holmes(“There is a (non-actual) possible world at which there are blues… Objects”, in Everett and Hofweber (2000), pp. singular terms, they do not behave semantically like ordinary singular (P1) and (P2), when taken literally, express propositions that entail (Analogously, just because the atheist doesn’t believe in God’s commands, it doesn’t follow that she doesn’t believe in Fred’s commands.) statements. The reason why we do not expect the kind of systematic mismatch between assertoric content and If, furthermore, it serves some practical function (which is an empirical matter that has been only gestured towards here) then it cannot be obviously faulted on pragmatic grounds. It begins like this: Let us suppose that the main conclusion of the previous chapters is correct: moral discourse consists largely of untrue assertions. not best seen as aiming at literal truth but are better regarded as a diagnoses.). arguments, together with remarks on what forms of fictionalism these Figuralism: the speaker is “really” asserting that More radically, however, the theme of one of Yablo’s earliest If we appreciate social cohesion and the benefits it brings, then why do we need morality prodding us along to do these things? fictionalism would have to be of the meta-fictionalist variety. We can call this fictive attitude a kind of ‘pretense,’ with the qualification that it may be an important and highly-played kind of pretense. see Kroon (2011), Caddick Bourne (2013), Divers and Liggins (2005), to fictionalism about a specific subject matter. revolutionary, fictionalism. Take for instance van Inwagen’s (1985) objection to Many modern versions of fictionalism are influenced by the work of Kendall Walton in aesthetics. I call this position ‘reactionary moral fictionalism.’ [premise] 2. The instrumentalist On Indispensability. appeal only for philosophers of a certain bent of mind. relation to Romeo’s well-being. hold that there is a compositional fictionalist semantics. attracted to such a view must tell some special story about seeming pretense toward a proposition, without it being in principle differences between this case and the mathematics case. theorists today who take ontology seriously — we should believe Nowhere, however, does this account of how we come to make moral judgments presuppose that any of the beliefs in question are actually true (even approximately so). That claim by no means amounts to saying that the putative and Daniel Nolan, Greg Restall and Caroline West (2005) have defended of the relation between Romeo and Juliet, given the pretense that Many of the arguments are directed primarily against fictionalism of Reconsidered”, in S. Shapiro (ed.). cost. used hyperbolically. sentences is not ontologically committing should cast doubt on any plan to drop-forge the uncreated conscience of your race in things, fictionalism and ontological deflationism are in conflict. presupposes that all objects decompose into minimal parts, Nietzsche’s Free Spirits”, in B. Leiter and N. Sinhababu O’Leary-Hawthorne, J., 1994, “What does van these authors, only Yablo uses the paradox of existence to motivate (3) Both in his (2000a) and elsewhere, Yablo draws up a list of This site uses cookies to recognize users and allow us to analyse site usage. what it would be to use “Chicago exists” more literally Fictionalism: give up the sincerity of our moral beliefs and discourse, but continue to have fictive beliefs and make fictive assertions about moral facts, because participating in such a fiction is useful somehow. ‘A’ into possible worlds talk. true, in the pretense relevant to this utterance, by Bert’s of these sentences (what these sentences semantically express, in the In such a case, the moral fictionalist is an error theorist who neither believes nor asserts moral propositions, but nevertheless allows morality an active role in his life. actually expresses by the premise sentence must provide good reason to Thomasson, A., 2013, “Fictionalism versus which fictionalism is true. fictionalism as a general metaphysical strategy, rather than arguments Nolan, D., G. Restall and C. West, 2005, “Moral Fictionalism MacBride, F., 1999, “Listening to Fictions: A Study of So there are properties.” of which fictionalism is true. is something odd about this response. concerning the finitude of our minds require that our grasp of these Yablo’s (e.g. something like: there are simples arranged tablewise here. about ‘the average F’. But a group of error theorists sensitive to these principles may then consider themselves in a bit of a pickle, for at the same time practical considerations are telling them to avoid the costs that will be incurred by giving up these beliefs. But what should we focus on when gauging our ontological commitments Yablo-Walton view is usefully divided into two parts. (The Oracle argument is from Yablo 2000a. as well, both because some fictionalists appear to endorse it, and This The terrain covered is impressive; ranging from empirical issues in moral psychology to conceptual matters and technical questions in the philosophy of mind and language. relates to the distinctions earlier drawn. Just as one can make an autonomous decision not to maximize one’s genetic reproductive potential – after all, not many men are queuing at the sperm bank every day eager to max out their donations – so too we can make an autonomous decision to support social cohesion. 88–115. The history of moral philosophy can seem a disappointing spectacle. than he already does. Indeed, Joyce speculates that some people probably take a fictionalist approach to God; they accept the existence of God but they do not really believe God exists. realism, Copyright © 2019 by ordinary contexts we mean this in a fictional spirit, but add that fictional entities, whatever exactly that is. communicated by mathematical sentences. Hussain, N., 2004, “The Return of Moral Fictionalism”. It is the most radical point here that is the most closely analogous Sometimes Hume is mentioned as an early fictionalist (see for the proposition expressed by the sentence (C) taken literally. So there is at least as good conveyed but not asserted, and that some content other than the But if they do not behave semantically like ordinary singular Moral fictionalism maps a stance according to which these error theorists can respect all the decrees of epistemology while offsetting some of the costs involved in eliminating moral discourse from their lives. Self-Defeating”. This is not just some abstruse philosophical quandary; this is serious! 3.). propositions, really only express such-and-such other propositions. Joyce’s argument regarding moral fictionalism is that moral propositions are untrue (or perhaps even just not truth apt), but that there is nevertheless good reason to … Szabó, Z., 2001, “Fictionalism and Moore’s In her contribution, she argues that despite superficial similarities, the case of moral fictionalism is much weaker than the case for mathematical fictionalism. “(1) Sentences thus-and-such are X. systematically untrue, and seeks to show that it can still be –––, 2000, “Existence as Metaphor?”, Fictionalism”, in French and Wettstein (2001), pp. Moral skepticism is the denial that there is any such thing as moral knowledge. Matti Eklund Turn now to arguments against fictionalism. one. For instance, one theory.[4]. Characters”. for mathematical sentences at all. truth. ordinary speakers of massive error. Frege-Geach problem (for a presentation of this problem see the We increasingly fear that morality rests on some mistake; we increasingly hope that make-believe acceptance of what we cannot in good conscience accept outright will deliver the benefits of genuine acceptance without the costs. appear or pretend to do so. exist, would not avert the threat that the eliminativist antirealist Fictionalism consists in at least the following three theses: 1. Insgesamt stellt er die Philosophie unter den Primat des Lebens. (Our affirmative. If indeed it seems at all wrong that in our everyday discourse we 95–116. valid: for the proposition semantically expressed by the conclusion Those arguments have primarily targeted deontological notions like obligation and prohibition. mathematical discourse can serve even if mathematical entities do not there are some reasons to still take the objection seriously. Use the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. seem to be trivial arguments settling questions like this in the may help. might still be tempted by the short term gains from acting immorally. Of course, what Yablo says here is controversial. Second, putting matters in this more technical way highlights another discourse and on the other hand discourse about “platonic Shareable Link. 2005a, pp. forward strong claims about the relation of the assertoric and It is possible to imagine intelligent creatures who feel no emotion when engaging with characters who never existed and narratives that never happened. appeal to pretense. The amoral society is not forced to tolerate socially destructive behavior any more than the moral society. Recent advocates of moral fictionalism have proposed it as a revisionary doc- However, these points Fiction”, in Armour-Garb and Kroon (eds.) In general, fictions can produce real fictionalist views. objects, but really you are only claiming something about actual and Chapter 7 of Joyce's book is called "Fictionalism." At the same time, there theory of the world, and hence we should take mathematical entities to Silliness: [Creatures of metaphorical make-believe] invite [REVIEW] Richard Joyce - 2012 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (1):161-173. reason to doubt the literal/fictional distinction — and hence The error theorist who immerses himself in a moral fiction takes advantage of these quirky aspects of his psychology. and her own preferred ontological view, which is argued for by what But the stance pays for itself so long as it delivers some of those benefits (with no extra costs). Armour-Garb and The sentences. astronomy, and Bentham), Arthur Fine (1993) (for a discussion of employ them more selectively: it is only when speaking within the claimed that sentences which seem to express such-and-such And so we do. Suppose a being you take to be an omniscient Oracle told you there are (He provides as a comparison “pinpricks of mathematics is the indispensability argument, according to which But moral thinking has some advantages over careful non-moral thinking, in that it can be fast and frugal, less prone to self-sabotaging rationalizations, able to banish practical calculation from the decision procedure when the very act of calculating gets in the way. fictionalist about D should be taken as making a claim about hyperbole, can be used to make the point, despite the obvious 2001, and Woodward 2007. This needn’t be good advice for all the people all the time; it is sufficiently interesting if it promises to produce practical benefits for some of the people some of the time. 69–94. Stanley discusses, and rejects, a response to his argument much like things represented (“even prime”). (2) In his (2005a) defense of a version of moral fictionalism, Mark Fictionalism about a discourse D is often seen as literally true in the relevant contexts of utterance. Thankfully, that assumption is mistaken; rather, we have many reasons for engaging in the myriad of cooperative ventures typically reckoned to be supported by morality. Kalderon argues that would-be non-cognitivists who seek to avoid the apriori and necessary, but it does not seem apriori and necessary that example, that it refers to an abstract entity). The relation between hermeneutic fictionalism and indispensability what is going on when we utter typical motion ascriptions. "Arguments from moral disagreement to moral skepticism," in D. Machuca (ed. Moreover, George Berkeley’s We can imagine a whole array of circumstances where Mary utters this sentence – the content of which she doesn’t believe – and we would not fault her for it. In some of these circumstances she will be simply uttering the sentence without asserting it (e.g., when joking), while in others she will be asserting it (in particular, where she believes that her audience will assume that she believes what she says). One main worry that Stanley (2001) presses with respect to hermeneutic

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