Alexander Miller - Contemporary Metaethics: An Introduction

The right of Alexander Miller to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2013 by Polity Press

First edition published in 2003 by Polity Press

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ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8051-4

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This book is intended to provide a critical overview of some main themes and issues in contemporary metaethics. I set the scene with discussions of Moore and Ayer, and follow up with discussions of more recent figures: Blackburn, Gibbard, Mackie, Wright, Harman, Sturgeon, Railton, Wiggins, Jackson, Pettit, Smith and McDowell. It will be apparent to anyone with a knowledge of the rich scene presented by contemporary metaethics that many important figures and issues do not get discussed in the book. In a work of this length and scope that could not be helped. In addition, it seemed to me that a substantial discussion of some main facets of the territory would be more interesting, and ultimately more helpful, than a superficial tour of a much larger area. And where possible I have tried to make small contributions to the ongoing debates, which I hope will be of interest to the professional as well as the student.

I had the idea for this book shortly after completing my PhD dissertation at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1995. In that dissertation I attempted to defend what I took to be McDowells take on Wittgensteins rule-following considerations. Initially, my plan was to start with Moore, then get clear on the inadequacies of his non-naturalist position before showing that both naturalistic cognitivism and non-cognitivism are likewise implausible. Courtesy of the rule-following arguments, McDowell would emerge at the end of the book as a defender of a form of non-naturalism not prone to the difficulties of Moores position or of its naturalistic competitors. In fact, the book has turned out to be the opposite of this. I still begin by arguing that Moores non-naturalism is inadequate, but then I try to show that many of the objections against naturalistic cognitivism (especially reductionist versions) and non-cognitivism (especially Blackburns quasi-realism) are at least less compelling than they initially seem. In particular, I argue that the rule-following arguments and their like do nothing to undermine Railtons naturalistic cognitivism or Blackburns quasi-realism, nor do they save McDowell from the charge that his non-naturalism is ultimately no more plausible than Moores.

Versions of parts of the book have been read at seminars at: Cambridge, Cardiff, Durham, Stirling, and Macquarie University in Sydney; and also at the 2001 graduate metaethics conference at Leeds and Martin Kuschs 2002 workshop on meaning and normativity at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. The audiences at these events provided many helpful responses. I used early versions of the manuscript as the basis for lecture courses at Birmingham in 1996 and 1997, and at Cardiff in 2001. I would like to thank the students in those classes for their useful feedback. For comments on parts of the manuscript I am grateful to John Divers, Mark Nelson, Penelope Mackie, Chris Norris, Robin Attfield, Duncan McFarland and Bob Hale. For detailed comments on the entire manuscript I am very grateful to Phillip Stratton-Lake and two other (anonymous) readers for Polity Press, and also to Andrew Fisher and Simon Kirchin. Needless to say, I have not been able to deal with all of these comments in the final version, and I am alone responsible for any errors that remain. I have found Michael Smiths