tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post111000068787811013..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Evaluative MeaningRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1110166389647476822005-03-06T22:33:00.000-05:002005-03-06T22:33:00.000-05:00Amoralistic psychopaths can conduct moral reasonin...Amoralistic psychopaths can conduct moral reasoning and make moral judgments. This sinks non-cognitivism. The non-cognitivist can claim that it's only "as if" they conduct moral reasoning, but that's just hand-waving.<br /><br />When two people disagree, truth is relativised. As the story may get more complicated by a rebuttal to that, see my J. of Social Phil. article of 2003, "Moral Relativism and the Argument from Disagreement," which I think puts the old issue to rest.Jim Ryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00053203362792999895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1110078362627482112005-03-05T22:06:00.000-05:002005-03-05T22:06:00.000-05:00Not quite - recall that I want to distinguish eval...Not quite - recall that I want to distinguish evaluation from attitude. We can evaluate something as a 'good gun' without any accompanying 'hurrahs' at all.<br /><br />To make the descriptive statement: "X will fulfill desire Y", is (I argue) to evaluate X with respect to Y. Evaluations are just a sort of description, in that way. Whether or not we personally approve of X and Y, however, is an entirely separate question. That's where attitudes come in.<br /><br />(I suspect our disagreement stems from using the word 'evaluation' to mean different things?)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1110071651633253112005-03-05T20:14:00.000-05:002005-03-05T20:14:00.000-05:00Yeah, I should clarify that in this post I really ...Yeah, I should clarify that in this post I really wasn't discussing <I>morality</I> at all, but just <I>value</I> generally.<br /><br />I agree that the 'relevant desires' will vary according to context, and something can have a form of value (e.g. a 'good' gun) whilst being morally bad, or able to be put to bad purposes, or whatever.<br /><br />Part of the point I'm trying to make is that evaluations can be made relative to some standard that is not individually subjective. (Though of course whether someone cares about this standard will vary from person to person.) We can judge the gun to be 'good qua gun' even if we personally disapprove of firearms. So the non-cognitivist seems mistaken in relating all value judgments to subjective attitudes. (If that is indeed what NC does - I may be misrepresenting the position?) Attitudes and evaluations are not the same thing.<br /><br />This difference is particularly important in the case of <A HREF="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/01/objective-moral-relativism.html" REL="nofollow">morality</A>, where, as you note, I "take the further step of combining everybody's desires". But the difference starts even before this. The initial difference, I think, comes from recognising that evaluations are not expressing attitudes ("hooray!", etc.), but are instead 'cognitive' in that they make propositional claims <I>about</I> desires ("X will fulfill desire Y" is either true or false). Attitudes are something distinct from objective evaluation.<br /><br />I'm a little confused about some of the main post myself actually, but does this make any more sense?Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com