PHIL 440A: Study Questions for Week #7: Anti-Realism

On Blackburn:

(1) Blackburn says there is no "first philosophy"? What is "first philosophy", or what would it be if there were one?

(2) What does Blackburn mean by moral "quail-realism"? Why does he call it a "projective" theory?

(3) Why does Blackburn want us to think of moral convictions as a "conative stance" rather than a "belief"? (What does "conative" mean? Look it up if you don't know.)

(4) What does Blackburn mean when he says: "The teleology of spatial perception is spatial, the teleology of ethical commitment is not ethical"(170).

(5) What are Blackburn's arguments against the idea of perception of moral properties?

(6) What is the "Whiggish" judgment that Blackburn discusses? What is his explanation of it?

(7) What does Blackburn mean when he says that color is a dangerous example?

(8) What is the distinction between internal and external questions employed by Blackburn? Explain it by explaining the two ways of understanding the sentence: What is wrong (e.g., that wanton cruelty is wrong) depends on our stances or attitudes.

(9) What is the analogy to mathematics supposed to show? Does it?

(10) On p. 175, Blackburn takes up the issue that we would describe as the "normative question": Whether the justification of ethics can survive reflection on his explanation of it. How does he answer that question?

(11) What is Blackburn's reply to the claim that his quasi-realism is relativist?

(12) According to Blackburn, what is Boyd's biggest mistake? (You have to think about this one. Blackburn does not discuss Boyd.) According to Boyd, what is Blackburn's biggest mistake?

On McDowell:

(1) McDowell's topic is what is necessary for us to earn the right to speak of ethical truth. We know there are two possibilities: (1) to locate explicitly normative entities (intuitionism); (2) to identify objective reasons. Which possibility does McDowell this is the correct one?

(2) McDowell thinks that Blackburn only considered two alternatives, Platonism and projectivism. What is the third alternative that McDowell favors?

(3) What does McDowell think is the important difference beween the concept disgusting and the concept funny (or humorous)?

(4) What does McDowell mean by a "no-priority view"(220)? as applied to "funny"? as applied to ethics?

(5) For McDowell, the main issue is how to understand moral reasons. According to McDowell, are we allowed to use moral reasons in trying to understand them? Explain.

On Harman:

(1) Early in the article, Harman draws a parallel between scientific observation and moral observation when he says "you see what you do because of the theories that you hold"(84). What is the parallel?

(2) Harman thinks there is an important disanalogy between scientific and moral observation. Explain it. (Hint: What is the difference between the observation of a proton's path in a cloud chamber and the observation of the wrongness of setting a cat on fire?)

(3) Harman refers to an ambiguity in the word "observation". What is the ambiguity? Explain the two senses of observation. Explain why Harman believes that scientific principles can explain observations in both senses. Explain why Harman believes that moral principles can explain observations in one sense but not the other.