WiP - David Copp / Motivating Metaethical Teleology
WiP - David Copp / Motivating Metaethical Teleology
David Copp from UC Davis presents at our Works in Progress meeting, on "Motivating Metaethical Teleology," which develops the idea that moral truths have a point, namely to enhance sociality.
Begin with the idea that morality has point. This idea can be motivated and made more precise if we think about the challenge of the error theory. This theory entails that nothing is wrong. It entails that all our basic substantive moral beliefs are false. It therefore presumably recommends abandoning moral belief. The consequences of this might be very bad in various respects – including that it might weaken “sociality” (i.e. cooperative tendencies and the like), and thereby undermine people’s ability to achieve what they value and meet their basic needs. Recognizing this can be part of a line of thought leading to the idea that moral culture has a point. (This is an indirect claim about what explains the existence of moral cultures.) It can further motivate the thesis that the moral truth is, roughly, a function of the content of the moral culture the existence of which would do most to enhance sociality. I develop an analogy with money. And I generalize these ideas to motivate a view about the truth conditions of normative beliefs of other kinds, including epistemic beliefs and beliefs about practical rationality or prudence. I conclude with thoughts about the distinction between merely “formal normativity” and “robust normativity.” Why tie our understanding of robust normativity to the teleological ideas I have been exploring?