Dworkin on external skepticism

Boston University Law Review

Volumn 90, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 509-520

  Smith, Michael ^a  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77954318334     PISSN: 00068047     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (54)

1. RONALD DWORKIN, JUSTICE FOR HEDGEHOGS (forthcoming 2010) (Apr. 17, 2009 manuscript, on file with the Boston University Law Review).
2. Id. (manuscript at 20-21). Two cross-cutting distinctions give us four possibilities, but Dworkin thinks that one of these possibilities does not make any sense. Id. (manuscript at 22).
3. Id. (manuscript at 25).
4. Id. (manuscript at 21).
5. Id.
6. PETER SINGER, ANIMAL LIBERATION 159-83 (2002).
7. PETER SINGER, RETHINKING LIFE AND DEATH 209-10 (1994).
8. Id. at 210-17.
9. PETER SINGER, HOW ARE WE TO LIVE? 219-35 (1995).
10. DWORKIN, supra note 1 (manuscript at 20-21).
11. Id. (manuscript at 21).
12. Id.
13. E.g., RICHARD JOYCE, THE MYTH OF MORALITY 206-31 (2001).
14. DWORKIN, supra note 1 (manuscript at 25). Dworkin argues that since an internal skeptic is defined to be someone who assumes the truth of certain moral claims when he argues for the falsehood of others, and since a status skeptic is defined to be someone who denies that moral claims are either true or false, it follows that there is no coherent form of internal status skepticism. Id. (manuscript at 22).
15. Id.
16. Eg., A.J. AYER, LANGUAGE, TRUTH, AND LOGIC 102-20 (2d ed. 1948) ("We shall set ourselves to show that in so far as statements of value are significant, they are... simply expressions of emotion which can be neither true nor false.");
17. SIMON BLACKBURN, SPREADING THE WORD 167-71 (1984) (describing emotivism, or the idea that ethical statements are neither true nor false, but simply expressions of emotion);
18. ALAN GIBBARD, WISE CHOICES, APT FEELINGS 126-50 (1990) (describing moral judgments as emotional states);
19. R.M. HARE, THE LANGUAGE OF MORALS 163-79 (1952) (reducing moral imperatives to psychological statements of feeling);
20. JOYCE, supra note 13, at 53-79 (defending external error skepticism, the position that there are no moral propositions);
21. JOHN MACHE, ETHICS: INVENTING RIGHT AND WRONG 15-49 (1977) (arguing for external error skepticism, that there are no objective moral values).
22. See infra Part I.
23. See infra Part II.
24. DWORKIN, supra note 1 (manuscript at 42).
25. MACKIE, supra note 16, at 38-42.
26. Id.
27. Id.
28. John McDowell seems to interpret Mackie's argument this way. John McDowell, Values and Secondary Qualities, in MORALITY AND OBJECTIVITY 110, 117-18 (Ted Honderich ed., 1985).
29. DWORKIN, supra note 1 (manuscript at 51).
30. Id.
31. -26Id.
32. Id.
33. Id.
34. Id.
35. Id.
36. Id.
37. Id. (manuscript at 51-52).
38. Id. (manuscript at 53).
39. Id. (manuscript at 46).
40. Id.
41. Id.
42. Id.
43. Id. (manuscript at 23).
44. Id. (manuscript at 46-48).
45. See id. (manuscript at 47).
46. Id.
47. E.g., Ronald Dworkin, Objectivity and Truth: You 'd Better Believe It, 25 PHIL. & PUB. AFF. 87, 97-99 (1996) (arguing against external status skepticism because the denial of the truth or falsity of second-order moral claims entails the denial of the first-order moral claim);
48. Ronald Dworkin, Reply by Ronald Dworkin, BROWN ELECTRONIC ARTICLE RES. SERV. MORAL & POL. PHIL., Apr. 9, 1997, http://www.brown.edu/Departments/ Philosophy/bears/9704dwor.html (replying to Simon Blackburn and arguing that external status skeptics necessarily contradict themselves in asserting moral claims are merely expressive and do not rely on the truth or falsity of objective moral claims).
49. E.g., CRISPIN WRIGHT, TRUTH AND OBJECTIVITY 195 (1992) (suggesting that moral claims are unique in that non-moral claims can be used as an explanation for their effects on agents);
50. James Dreier, Meta-Ethics and the Problem of Creeping Minimalism, 18 PHIL. PERSPECTIVES 23, 41-42 (2004) (arguing that external status skeptics consider moral claims true in a minimalist sense, but unique from claims about natural facts in that moral claims are explained solely through desire regarding non-moral matters of fact);
51. Paul Horwich, The Essence of Expressivism, 54 ANALYSIS 19, 20 (1994) (distinguishing moral claims as those expressing a desire, but denying that moral claims cannot be true);
52. Paul Horwich, Gibbard's Theory of Norms, 22 PHIL. & PUB. AFF. 67, 77 (1993) (reviewing GIBBARD, supra note 16) (distinguishing normative claims from claims about the natural world in that normative claims, while true in a minimalist sense, are simply expressing feeling).
53. See supra Part I.
54. This is Dreier's point See generally Dreier, supra note 43.