Farbod Akhlaghi (Christ's College, University of Cambridge), "Non-Realist Cognitivism, Truthmaking, and Ontological Cheating"
Ethics, 2022
The most difficult philosophical terrain is often found in debates over how to understand a question, how to distinguish between competing answers, what considerations are relevant to answering the question, and what counts as a good answer to the question in the first place. The metaphysics of morality and of normativity is, by that metric, some of the most difficult terrain to navigate today. Worse, it is hard to resist thinking that the metaphysics of morality, and of normativity more generally, has reached a kind of stalemate. The battle lines have been drawn, theories distinguished, arguments furnished, and we remain as unsure as ever what to believe. Where do we go from here?
It is in such despair that we might turn to Derek Parfit’s so-called non-realist cognitivism. Parfit took himself to be breaking new ground, suggesting a novel, eminently plausible theory which circumvented traditional problems for non-naturalism generated by how people had hitherto conceived of normative metaphysical debate. According to non-realist cognitivism, there are objectively true, irreducibly normative propositions that are not “made to be true by correctly describing, or corresponding to, how things are in some part of reality,” that is, their truth has “no ontological implications.” Normative facts and properties, he maintained, exist only in a “nonontological” sense of ‘exist’, and they do not face any “difficult ontological questions,” avoiding ontological objections altogether.
It is an open secret that non-realist cognitivism is seen by many as either objectionably unclear, another theory in disguise, or, at worst, deeply confused. For if there are true irreducibly normative claims, how could such claims possibly avoid ontological commitments? Isn’t this ‘non-ontological’ sense of ‘exist’ just an ad hoc stipulation to avoid traditional objections to normative non-naturalism? This might all just smack, in some sense, of cheating.
Parfit tried to defend himself against such objections. But it is safe to say that most remained unconvinced. I think, however, that these charges can be deflected and non-realist cognitivism can stand as an interesting, novel theory that presents a deep challenge to contemporary meta-normativity. The problem for Parfit’s attempts to show this is that he did not engage with the resources available from that area of philosophy concerned with how to understand metaphysical and ontological debates: meta-metaphysics.
But the blame for this neglect does not lie solely at Parfit’s feet. For it is a striking fact that there is almost no explicit discussion in contemporary meta-ethics of the nature of metaphysics and ontology, and on how such debates may bear upon the metaphysics of morality and of normativity. Equally striking is that contemporary meta-metaphysics has also neglected the rich case of morality and normativity in thinking through the nature of metaphysics.
This mutual neglect might strike you as at worst odd but harmless. That is a grave mistake. For, first, if metaphysical meta-normative theories hope to succeed, they had best not fall foul of plausible claims about the nature of metaphysics itself or its methodology. Similarly, meta-metaphysical theories will be plausible only if they can coherently capture the nature of metaphysics about every domain and not just a few cases meta-metaphysicians are most exercised by. Second, inattentiveness to meta-metaphysical debates can render us blind to novel first-order metaphysical theories, whilst greater attentiveness can illuminate how to answer metaphysical questions about normativity in tangible ways. One may not realise it, but meta-metaphysical assumptions play crucial roles in how we even formulate metaphysical debates in meta-ethics. In considering this, we can come to learn that certain assumptions have dramatically shaped a debate in ways we did not see, that these assumptions are optional, and, perhaps, ones we should reject too.
Unconvinced? Well, I hope my paper ‘Non-Realist Cognitivism, Truthmaking, and Ontological Cheating’ may change your mind. It has three aims. First, to provide an account of non-realist cognitivism that eliminates common charges of objectionable unclarity, and illuminates the hitherto-opaque dialectical situation surrounding it, by appeal to truthmaker theory which, with few exceptions, has been absent from meta-ethics. Second, to develop the above-mentioned cheating intuition into an objection that ultimately reveals a dilemma for the best reading of non-realist cognitivism. And third, to begin bridging the largely unexplored gulf between the metaphysics of normativity and truthmaker theory.
Truthmaker theorists are motivated by the thought that what is true asymmetrically metaphysically depends upon the world; ‘the rose is red’ is true in virtue of the existence of the red rose and not vice versa. But truthmaker theorists disagree about whether all truths have truthmakers or only some, the former being truthmaker maximalists and the latter anti-maximalists. On my account, non-realist cognitivism is best understood as adopting a form of truthmaker anti-maximalism on which at least – but not only – irreducibly normative truths lack truthmakers. I argue the best case they can make for this is to suggest that irreducibly normative propositions are metaphysically necessary and that all metaphysically necessary truths lack truthmakers. After all, necessary truths are true come what may – they tell us how things must be, not what contingently happens to be.
A fuller story of the difference truthmaker theory can make to the plausibility of non-realist cognitivism, and how to understand and conduct normative metaphysical debate more generally, is in the paper – but here is a brief illustration. Much meta-normative debate appears to proceed by assuming a certain theory of ontological commitment. The theory: that a theory is committed to x if and only if x lies within the domain of the existential quantifiers in that theory. So, a theory is committed to, say, numbers if and only if numbers are quantified over by some sentences in that theory, forming objects in the domain of their quantifiers. The prevalence of a theory like this explains, for example, why so many meta-ethicists find it incredible to suggest that one can be committed to sentences that existentially quantify over, say, reasons, whilst denying – as Parfit did – that one is ontologically committed to reasons.
Familiarity with the debates in meta-metaphysics over ontological commitment quickly reveals not only deep problems with that Quinean picture of ontological commitment, but other independently motivated views which give you the result Parfit desired. One would be a truthmaking-based account of ontological commitment. For example, we might think that a theory is ontologically committed to x if and only if x is something that must exist to make true the propositions expressed in that theory. Provided non-realist cognitivism can make a case that normative phenomena are not needed to make true irreducibly normative propositions – which, as I say above, I think they can, albeit with some difficulty – they have here a clear way to maintain that such propositions lack ontological commitment.
By showing how to most plausibly develop non-realist cognitivism, I hope to in passing highlight that one of the most important aspects of Parfit’s great meta-ethical legacy was the questions he prompted us to ask. What general meta-metaphysical framework do meta-ethicists accept, and which should they? What theory of ontological commitment do they accept, and which should they? What general methodological commitments in metaphysics do meta-ethicists have, and which should they? Left unanswered, remaining in stalemate would be unsurprising; confusingly looking for other answers when we might not even agree on how to formulate our questions. Suppose further that there is implicit agreement on some of these questions in contemporary meta-ethics. Then, as John Skorupski nicely puts it elsewhere, if the ‘received meta-normative options in current discussion have reached a stalemate, it’s not surprising that progress can be made only if some dearly held doctrines are discarded.’
I finally hope that, more generally, what the paper provides is an illustration of why meta-metaphysics matters to meta-ethics, and vice versa. Both sub-disciplines have much to gain from mutual engagement, and I think that case is made best not from first principles but by showing those on both sides why their engagement matters in suitably restricted ways. Here, I hope to have convinced truthmaker theorists they should pay greater attention to morality and normativity, and to have convinced meta-ethicists that truthmaker theory can have profound consequences for meta-ethics. There are many other illustrations to be made of the importance of the meta-metaphysics of normativity, and fruit to bear from such engagement. But they will have to await another occasion.