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The Evolution of Expressivism
Why Solving the Frege-Geach Problem and the Problem of Moral Disagreement is not enough
The Past - Polarized Positions and Hybrid Theories
What is the nature of moral judgments? This question has previously been given two polarized
answers. The pure cognitivist argued that moral judgments consist in beliefs which can be true or
false. The pure expressivist claimed that moral judgments consist in attitudes which lack a truthvalue. However, neither camp was able to account for the apparent fact that moral judgments have
both belief and desire-like features. For example, cognitivists could not explain the apparent
practicality of moral judgments. Expressivists, on the other hand, was troubled with how we
should think of moral terms in embedded contexts (aka the Frege-Geach problem), and how moral
disagreement should be accounted for. Thus, what both sides soon realized was that in order to
capture the full nature of a moral judgment they would have to borrow the best features from their
opponent.
This motivated theorists to widen their explanatory aspirations - hybrid theories started to
emerge, focusing on the idea that moral judgments expresses an attitude, or a desire-like state, as
well as a descriptive belief. Even though this project seems like a fairly straightforward one, there
is a lot of twisting and turning from different philosophers about exactly how these two mental
states functions and relates to each other in order to give the best plausible explanation of moral
language.
Hybrid theories come in different forms - either with an emphasis on cognitivism (e.g.
Boisvert, 2008) or expressivism (e.g. Ridge, 2006). What we will focus on in this paper is hybrid
expressivism. One problem for hybrid expressivism is that it seems able to solve one of the
problems stated above, but not both. For instance, in 2006, Michael Ridge put forth Ecumenical
Expressivism, a theory which explained moral judgments as expressing beliefs and general
attitudes toward certain properties. However, this solution could only solve the Frege-Geach
problem but left the problem of moral disagreement unsatisfied. But if one argues that moral
judgments express attitudes towards the subject (Eriksson, 2009), it seems that one can make
sense of disagreement, but not the Frege-Geach problem. This puts the hybrid expressivist in a
dilemma (Eriksson, forthcoming) - they simply cannot solve both problems at the same time. This
motivates a major change in hybrid expressivism, if it ought to have a future in the meta-ethical
debate.
The Present - Relational Expressivism
This is where we are today. Modern theories of hybrid expressivism, what we label as „Relational
Expressivism‟, have included features of metaphysical relations (Schroeder, 2013) and specific
mental states (what Toppinen (2013) refers to as „higher order states‟) with the aim to be able to
solve both the Frege-Geach problem as well as to account for moral disagreement. Nevertheless,
we argue that even if the relational expressivist is able to solve previously hard fought challenges,
it is burdened with a new problem - the added metaphysical relation or mental state is either
vacuous or contradictory. This new problem will be the first of our two concerns in this paper: i)
the adding of a new mental state or metaphysical relation entails a unreasonably high ontological
cost considering the explanatory gain, and: ii) there are other promising alternatives, which hybrid
expressivist could utilize in order to sustain the explanatory value that we seek, that has not been
properly investigated.
We argue that these new elements introduced in relational expressivism are not explained
sufficiently enough in order to safely enjoy the theoretical advantage it is supposed to generate.
Our case against relational expressivism is a two horned dilemma: the only interpretations of the
relation between desires and beliefs (that in Toppinen‟s case realizes a higher order state) renders
it either vacuous or such that it includes too much, causing it to contain contradictions. Our first
claim is built from the apparent lack of explanation of what the relation, or higher order state, is
really supposed to be - if it can‟t be explained other than by reference to the desires and beliefs it
is constituted by, that would render it ad hoc. Our second claim, built from Allan Gibbard‟s
argument in Thinking How to Live (2003), states that two agents who accept the same normative
claim will also have to accept all the things that this claim „rules in‟. This would entail that a
position using the notion of multiple realizability in this instance would be committed to the idea
that an agent, when accepting a certain normative statement, accepts contradictory beliefs and
desires (e.g. accepting P&¬P at the same time). This argument creates a new requirement for
modern hybrid expressivists, that is, they have to provide an account of semantics which is free
from contradictions. This takes us to the second concern of this paper.
The Future - Food for Thoughts
So, in light of this new requirement, is there a better way to approach hybrid expressivism? We
believe that there is. In the spirit of Wayne Davis (2003), John Eriksson (2014) has suggested that
meaning should not be explained in terms of beliefs, desire-like states, metaphysical relations, or
higher order states for that matter. Meaning should be explained in terms of a more basic mental
state - thoughts (and its equivalent to desire-like states). This theory satisfies our requirement of a
contradictory free semantics stated above, since thoughts are not a „product‟ of beliefs and desirelike states, it is not even necessarily connected to other propositional attitudes (e.g. you can think
that Smaug is guarding the gold in Erebor without believing it). However, there are certain
matters that need to be attended to before its viability can be fully assessed.
The most urgent issue for Eriksson‟s theory, an issue he shares with Toppinen and
Schroeder, is its vagueness. What exactly is a thought? What is the relation between thoughts and
other propositional attitudes? Is there a metamorphosis occurring such that thoughts transform
into other propositional attitudes (e.g. belief, hope, fear etc.)? And, even if we are able to grasp
the concept of a thought, is it really plausible that it has a basic counterpart in the evaluative
domain? Nevertheless, ceteris paribus, Eriksson‟s use of thoughts seems more intuitive and
familiar as opposed to e.g. Toppinen‟s rather mysterious higher order states.
Our last aim for this paper is to straighten out some of these question marks in order to
show that there is a viable and promising future for hybrid expressivism which can avoid the
pressing problems faced by contemporary hybrid expressivists. In conclusion, hybrid
expressivism may have hit a brick wall, but „tis not over till the fat lady sings.
List of Literature:
Boisvert, Daniel. (2008) “Expressive-Assertivism”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 89 (2).
Davis, Wayne. (2003) Meaning, expression and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Eriksson, John. (2009) “Homage to Hare: Ecumenism and the Frege-Geach Problem”, Ethics, vol.
120 (1).
Eriksson, John. (2014) “Hybrid Expressivism: How to think about meaning” in Having it Both
Ways: Hybrid Theories and Modern Metaethics (eds.) Guy Fletcher and Michael Ridge. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Eriksson, John. (forthcoming) “Explaining Disagreement: A Problem for (some) Hybrid
Expressivist”.
Gibbard, Allan. (2003) Thinking How to Live. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ridge, Michael. (2006) “Ecumenical Expressivism: Finessing Frege”. Ethics, vol. 116 (2).
Ridge, Michael. (2007) “Ecumenical Expressivism: The Best of Both Worlds?”. Oxford Studies in
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Toppinen, Teemu (2013), “Believing in Expressivism”. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 8.