The Origin of Oughtness by Stefan Fischer

Author:Stefan Fischer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

10.2The Anthropological Argument for Humeanism

Now, how does all of this relate to Humeanism? That is a tough question, and here is why: Even Non-Humeans may accept everything we have said so far and maintain that this changes nothing regarding the plausibility points of theories of oughtness. They could accept that the purpose of the distinctively human form of practical deliberation is to resolve conative coordination problems—but reject that the favorings we appeal to during our coordinative endeavors are grounded in desire facts.440

Some expressivist views are built along these lines. For example, Jimmy Lenman has recently defended the idea that, locally, our favorings are mind-independent even though, ultimately, all the normative force we encounter is grounded, at the global level, in the totality of the conative web.441 That is, Lenman defends—like we do—the idea that oughtness originates in our conative attitudes; but—unlike us—he rejects the idea that, at the local level, favorings are grounded in (a small subset of) our desires. Objectivists could come up with a similar reply. They could accept our evolutionary story about the origins of practical deliberation, but reject the idea that the local favorings we appeal to in deliberation are grounded in desire facts. For all we know, it is certainly a possibility that the favorings that help us manage the conative chaos are objective, external, and mind-independent.

The take home message underlying both replies is this: Our anthropological story only gets us to the idea that practical deliberation is conative mind management. But it is still a long way to go from there to the truth of Humeanism. Lenman’s and the objectivist’s reply drive this point home. Yes, practical deliberation may be the tool for managing the conative chaos. But that does not secure the idea that conative states play the role our Humean grounding principle assigns to them. Put differently: The fact that an orientation by favorings in practical deliberations is conative mind management does not imply that these favorings are grounded in (a particular subset of) our conative states. The truth of Humeanism simply does not follow from our anthropological story.

So, is it true after all that empirical insights cannot help us do metaethics? In the remainder of this chapter, I would like to show why they can.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.