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Objectivity in Moral Discourse

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Timmons M (2006), Objectivity in Moral Discourse. In: Keith Brown, (Editor-in-

Chief) Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Second Edition, volume 9, pp. 5-10.
Oxford: Elsevier.

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Objectivity in Moral Discourse
M Timmons, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
al
ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Does moral discourse purport to be objective? If
on many of their judgments about the subject matter of
so, can its objectivist pretensions be justified? Rough-
ly speaking, to say that some form of discourse is
rs
objective is to say that there is a single set of truths
about whatever subject matter the discourse is about.
Pe
We can make this rough characterization more
precise by formulating a number of related theses –
objectivity theses – that collectively capture this idea
of objectivity:
's
Cognitivism: Declarative sentences of the discourse
in question are used by speakers to make genuine
or
assertions and function mainly to express the speak-
er’s beliefs. Given that (sincere) belief and assertion
aim at representing what is true, such sentences are
th
capable of being true or false.
Truth: Some affirmative sentences of the discourse
Au
are true.
Independence: What makes some sentence of the
discourse true is that it corresponds to some fact –
where the existence and nature of the specific fact to
which the sentence corresponds is independent of the
attitudes and beliefs that individuals and groups have
toward the fact in question. It is common to use the
word ‘stance’ to refer to the beliefs and attitudes of
individuals and groups, so using this terminology we
may express the independence thesis by saying that
for the discourse in question there is a stance-inde-
pendent reality (realm of facts) that the discourse is
about, and the facts comprising that reality are what
make certain sentences of that discourse true.
Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (2006), vol. 9, pp. 5–10
Objectivity in Moral Discourse 5
Russell B (1912). The problems of philosophy. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Russell B (1918). ‘The philosophy of logical atomism.’
Monist 28, 495–527. Reprinted in Russell B (1956).
Logic and knowledge London: George Allen and Unwin.
Schiffer S (1978). ‘The basis of reference.’ Erkenntnis 13,
171–206.
Searle J (1983). Intentionality. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Searle J (1991). ‘Response: reference and intentionality.’ In
Lepore & Van Gulick (eds.).
Segal G (1989). ‘The return of the individual.’ Mind 98,
39–57.
y
op
C
Convergence: Ideally, use of the proper methods of
inquiry (which may differ from discourse to dis-
course) may be expected to lead individuals (at least
under suitably ideal conditions) to converge in a great
the discourse in question.
Discourse satisfying these four theses involves sen-
tences that are (or may be) objectively true and
hence we may say that the discourse itself is objective.
Of course, it is possible for some realm of discourse to
feature claims that purport to be objectively true
but fail to be so because one or more of the above
theses fail to hold in relation to the discourse in
question – a possibility to which we shall return
below.
Moral objectivism, then, at least as it is commonly
understood by philosophers, is the view that all four
theses hold in relation to moral discourse: not only
does moral discourse purport to be objective, it satis-
fies the objectivity requirements in question and thus
some moral judgments are objectively true. Some-
times this is put by saying that there is a single true
morality. As we shall see, some philosophers have
denied one or more of the four theses in relation
to moral discourse and thus denied that morality is
objective.
Determining whether moral objectivism is correct
requires an examination of fundamental philosophical
questions about the meaning, truth, and justification
of moral judgments – questions central to that branch
of ethics called ‘meta-ethics.’ But it also requires an
examination of the very notion of objectivity. And
here we find two models of objectivity. One of them
is inspired by discourse about the physical world
6 Objectivity in Moral Discourse
(including ordinary nonscientific discourse about the
world as well as scientific discourse) and which I will
refer to as the model of ‘ontological objectivity’ – so
called because the central idea is that there is an
ontological realm of ‘really’ existing objects and
properties that sentences from a particular discourse
purport to be about and which serve to make true
certain of those sentences. An alternate, more modest
form of objectivity, which I will call ‘methodological
objectivity,’ is less focused on matters of ontology and
more focused on methods of reasoning that govern
the discourse in question.
In what follows, we begin with a brief characteri-
zation of the ontological model of objectivity and
then proceed in the next four sections to consider
some of the evidence for and controversy about
whether moral discourse is ontologically objective.
After reviewing the pros and cons of the claim that
moral discourse is ontologically objective, we turn to
the second model of objectivity – a model that pro-
mises to make sense of objectivity without ontology.
al
Ontological Objectivity
In meta-ethical discussion over the objectivity of
on
moral discourse, discourse about ordinary common-
sense objects and their properties as well as scien-
rs
tific discourse – often referred to as descriptive
discourse – is taken to be paradigmatic of objec-
Pe
tive discourse. Roughly, the idea is that descriptive
discourse is (or at least purports to be) about a realm
of objects and properties in certain combinations
(facts) whose nature and existence is independent of
's
our beliefs, conventions, attitudes, and other mental
stances we might take toward those facts. Here, the
or
emphasis is on considerations of ontology – on what
exists – hence the label ‘ontological objectivity.’ More-
over, the ontological objectivist typically embraces a
th
strong form of the independence thesis, viz.,
What makes some sentence true is that it corresponds to
Au
some sort of stance-independent fact – where the exis-
tence and nature of the fact in question is independent of
the actual and ideal stances of individuals or groups.
The significance of this thesis of strong independence
(SI) will emerge later on when we turn to methodo-
logical objectivity.
So the model of ontological objectivity (using
descriptive discourse about objects and properties in
the world as an example) clearly involves the first
three objectivity theses: descriptive discourse serves
to express beliefs (cognitivism), some of which are
true (truth) when they correspond to stance-indepen-
dent facts (independence). Barring epistemological
skepticism, we may also expect suitably motivated
Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (2006), vol. 9, pp. 5–10
inquirers, using proper methods of inquiry, to con-
verge in their beliefs about this realm of objective fact
since their inquiries are being constrained by an
objective, stance-independent reality.
Ontological Objectivity and Moral
Discourse
Does moral discourse have the trappings of ontolog-
ically objective discourse? Indeed, is it a form of
descriptive discourse – discourse about a special sub-
ject matter, but nevertheless a discourse that is prop-
erly interpreted as representing a realm of objective
moral facts? Those who think so often point to a
y
number of ‘markers’ – features that are deeply em-
op
bedded in moral thought and discourse – that either
reflect or at least seem to support the various objec-
tivity theses. Let us consider some of them in more
detail.
C
Grammatical and Semantic Markers
Perhaps the most obvious markers of objectivity con-
cern matters of grammar and semantics.
O1: Moral sentences such as ‘John’s lying to
Brenda was wrong,’ in which a moral term appears,
are in the indicative mood and are used to make
genuine assertions that express a (sincere) speaker’s
beliefs.
O2: Moreover, because moral sentences are typi-
cally used to make assertions they are truth apt: they
are candidates for semantic evaluation in terms
of their truth and falsity. Sentences which predicate
the truth or falsity of a moral sentence seem to
make perfect sense (e.g., ‘It is true that John’s
lying to Brenda is morally wrong,’ ‘It is false that
contraception is morally wrong,’ and so on).
O3: Moreover, logically simple moral sentences
(e.g., ‘It is wrong to steal’) can embed in all sorts of
logically complex grammatical constructions, most
notably truth-functional and quantificational con-
structions (e.g., ‘If it is wrong to steal, then it is
wrong to encourage others to steal.’) It would seem
that such logically complex sentences have truth
values that are determined by the truth values of
their simpler constituents.
Ontological Markers
The following two markers have to do with the
ontological status of the subject matter of moral
discourse.
O4: Moral terms that appear in moral sentences
(e.g., ‘good,’ ‘right,’ ‘virtuous,’ and their opposites)
seem to be used to denote properties that are (or may
 Objectivity in Moral Discourse 7

be) possessed by items of moral evaluation. For ex-
ample, to say of an action that it is wrong appears
to attribute the property of wrongness to the action.
Furthermore, some moral sentences are used with the
apparent intention of picking out moral properties
and talking about them, as when one utters the sen-
tence ‘It was the badness of the practice of American
slavery that eventually led to its abolishment.’
O5: Moral truth and moral error are genuine pos-
sibilities. When we disagree over some moral issue,
we take ourselves to be engaged in a genuine dispute
where not all parties to the dispute are correct in their
moral convictions. What is apparently being assumed
in such disagreements is that there is a fact of the
But ontological moral objectivism is controversial:
we find a variety of meta-ethical positions that deny
one or more of the four objectivist theses and among
moral objectivists we find a variety of specific meta-
ethical positions that differ over questions of seman-
tics, metaphysics, and epistemology in relation to
moral discourse. Let us now briefly survey some of
these positions.
Moral Realism
One very straightforward way to accommodate
O1–O6 is simply to affirm the four objectivist theses

y
and, in particular, the idea that there is a realm of
matter about the issue in dispute – that there is an
moral properties (and moral facts) that are strongly

op
objective truth about the matter. This makes it natu-
independent of our attitudes and beliefs about them
ral to think that the truth (or falsity) of a moral
and which serve as an objective basis for the truth and
sentence is a matter of its correspondence (or lack
falsity of moral sentences. This meta-ethical position

C
of correspondence) to some moral fact. The puta-
is known as moral realism and the task of this kind of
tive fact that an action is wrong (supposing it is)
realist view is to explain what sorts of fact serve as
would seem to be what makes true a sentence
truth makers for moral judgments and how it is pos-

al
expressing this fact. Moral error results when what
sible to have justified belief and perhaps knowledge
one says or believes fails to properly record moral
of moral truths. Ontological naturalists, who are
reality.
on moral realists (Sturgeon, 1984; Railton, 1986, 1996;
Boyd, 1988; Brink, 1989; Bloomfield, 2001), claim
Epistemological Marker
that moral properties and facts are identical to certain
rs
Finally, the following marker has to do with matters natural properties and facts – properties and facts
of justification and knowledge. that are the proper subject matter for empirical sci-
ence to investigate. In the history of meta-ethical
Pe

O6: We dispute moral claims by offering reasons

inquiry, we find various attempts by philosophers to
for their truth or falsity and thus take such claims as
‘reduce’ moral properties and facts to some species
being susceptible to justification. One can be justified
of biological, psychological, or sociological fact.
or unjustified in claiming that John’s action was mor-
For instance, Spencer (1895) held that the property
's

ally wrong depending on one’s evidence for the claim –

of being better than, which he took to be basic in
evidence that can be offered, disputed, and discussed
ethics, could be reduced to the property of being
or

with others. Moreover, in some cases we at least

more highly evolved. Ontological nonnaturalists in
suppose that we have some moral knowledge. Surely
ethics (Moore, 1903; Ross, 1930; Shafer-Landau,
we take ourselves to know that torturing puppies for
th

2003) hold that moral properties and facts are of

fun is morally wrong. Since justification and knowl-
a special nonnatural kind; that rightness, for exam-
edge in ethics (as elsewhere) seems to require that
ple, is not identical to any natural property, but is
Au

there be reliable methods of inquiry suitable to the

form of inquiry, one would expect there to be a moral
methodology that would enable inquirers using it to
reach a high level of interpersonal convergence in
moral belief.
Thus, moral discourse, at least at first glance,
seems to possess all of the characteristic marks of
objectivity – indeed ontological objectivity. Many
philosophers go one step further and claim that
moral discourse is genuinely ontologically objective
and that moral discourse is a kind of descriptive
discourse whose primary function is to represent a
realm of moral facts.
nonetheless a real property.
Naturalist realists face the challenge of explaining
why some specific set of natural properties and facts
is identical to moral properties and facts. This in turn
would seem to require a plausible semantic account
of moral judgments that fits with naturalist real-
ism, something which has proved difficult to do.
Nonnaturalists, by contrast, propose to bloat our
ontological commitments: in addition to being meta-
physically committed to those entities in the natural
world that common sense and natural science com-
mits us to, the nonnaturalist wants to add a realm of
nonnatural properties and facts. Such metaphysical

Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (2006), vol. 9, pp. 5–10

8 Objectivity in Moral Discourse
extravagance has been met with strong resistance
from philosophers who think that such properties
and facts are mysterious metaphysical accretions
and that there are serious epistemological worries
accompanying any such view.
Denying Ontological Objectivity in Moral
Discourse
Some philosophers deny moral objectivism because
they deny the thesis of cognitivism in relation to
moral discourse. They claim that although the surface
grammar strongly suggests that moral judgments ex-
press beliefs and thus are used to make truth-apt asser-
tions, nevertheless all of this is misleading. Rather,
according to the meta-ethical position known as
noncognitivism (Stevenson, 1937, 1944; Ayer, 1946)
and more recently as expressivism (Gibbard, 1990,
2003; Blackburn, 1993, 1998; Horgan and Timmons,
2006), moral judgments are not really in the business
of expressing beliefs that purport to represent or de-
al
scribe moral facts; rather they instead function to
express some noncognitive attitude toward the object
of evaluation. Thus, for instance, according to emoti-
on
vism (one kind of noncognitivism), uttering a sentence
such as ‘Abortion is wrong’ really functions primarily
to express one’s negative feeling toward abortion and
rs
is roughly equivalent to saying, ‘Abortion: boo!’ So,
the noncognitivist denies both the theses of cogniti-
Pe
vism and truth (in relation to moral discourse) and
hence denies the independence and convergence theses
as well. What makes this view fairly radical is that it
distinguishes between the surface trappings of moral
's
discourse and its true, deep semantic working, and
claims that a proper semantic interpretation of the
or
discourse reveals that it really does not even purport
to be objective, that, to repeat, moral sentences are not
really used in thought and discourse to express beliefs
th
capable of being true or false.
A slightly less radical view, the error theory (Mackie,
Au
1977), maintains that although moral discourse is
properly interpreted as at least purporting to be objec-
tive, its various objective pretensions result from mas-
sive error. More precisely, the error theorist accepts the
thesis of cognitivism in relation to moral discourse, but
denies the thesis of independence and so denies the
claim that affirmative moral sentences are ever objec-
tively true. This position is analogous to atheism. That
is, an atheist holds that religious discourse involving
affirmative claims about God or gods purports to be
objectively true, but, claims the atheist, there are no
theological facts of the relevant sort that can make true
affirmative claims about God or gods, and so no such
claims are objectively true. The error theorist in ethics
is saying something similar. The moral judgment
Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (2006), vol. 9, pp. 5–10
‘repaying one’s debts is morally right’ purports to attri-
bute the property of moral rightness to the activity of
repaying debts, but since there are no such moral prop-
erties this sentence and all affirmative moral sentences
(taken literally) are false.
Finally, versions of moral relativism (Harman,
1984; Wong, 1984) typically affirm the theses of
cognitivism and truth, but maintain that moral truth
is not independent of the attitudes of individuals
and groups. Rather, for a typical relativist, what
makes a moral claim true is that some group accepts
some set of moral principles and these principles are
the very standard (for that group) that determine
(together with nonmoral facts) which further moral
y
sentences are true. The idea is that the sentences
op
expressing moral principles are counted as true in
virtue of being accepted by some group and the
more specific moral sentences that (together with
C
nonmoral facts) follow from these principles express
derivative moral truths. So, if some group accepts as a
basic moral principle that eating meat is morally
wrong, then the sentence ‘Eating meat is wrong’ is
true – relative to their moral outlook. If some animal
(or its remains) is as a matter of fact meat, then this
fact together with the general moral principle in ques-
tion implies specific moral truths about eating this or
that animal or its remains. Now, if some other indi-
vidual or group does not have any such principle
against meat eating, or has a principle that requires
eating meat, then the sentence ‘Eating meat is wrong’
is false – relative to their outlook. Thus, for the rela-
tivist, conflicting moral sentences may be equally
true.
There is a variety of ways to develop this basic rela-
tivist idea, but all of them are committed to denying
the idea that there is some realm of moral fact that is
independent of the stances of individuals and groups; in
short, for the moral relativist, there is no single true
objective morality.
Noncognitivism, the error theory, and relativism
have their able defenders, but of course embracing
one of these positions means having to claim either
that at least some of the various objectivist markers
(O1–O6) are illusory – not really characteristic of
the discourse – or that they are genuine but deeply
error ridden. Such views strike many philosophers as
meta-ethical options we should try to avoid in making
sense of moral thought and discourse (Wright, 1992;
Timmons, 1999).
Methodological Objectivism
In light of the metaphysical and epistemological pro-
blems that beset realist (ontological) accounts of
moral objectivity, some philosophers are attracted to

a different model of objectivity – a model that looks
to the realm of mathematics and logic for a way
of understanding how moral discourse can be objec-
tive even if there are no dedicated moral properties
and facts (of the sort associated with ordinary de-
scriptive discourse) that would serve as truth-makers
for moral sentences. Such meta-ethical views are
often called ‘constructivist.’ A central idea behind
versions of moral constructivism, then, is that just as
we need not suppose that there is a mystical realm of
numbers and mathematical relations that make cer-
tain mathematical sentences true, so we need not
make any heavy-duty ontological assumptions in
making sense of the apparent objectivity of moral
discourse (Putnam, 2004). For both sorts of discourse
– mathematical and moral – so long as there are
methods of reasoning governing these types of dis-
course that would lead properly motivated indivi-
duals to converge in their views on a large enough
number of claims within those areas, then we have a
proper basis for affirming the objective pretensions of
both realms. So, in contrast to the ontological model
of objectivity that emphasizes an SI thesis, the present
model takes the thesis of convergence as central
to moral objectivity. Let us explore this model in a
bit more detail.
Suppose, then, that associated with moral discourse
rs
is a method of moral thought and reasoning that
would (if properly applied) ideally lead to interperson-
Pe
al convergence over a wide range of moral issues; in
other words, suppose the convergence thesis holds for
moral discourse. Then, according to this line of
thought about objectivity, we would have the materi-
's
als to vindicate the other objectivity theses – cogniti-
vism, truth, and a modest form of independence. How
or
might this view be developed?
The general constructivist idea is that there are bet-
ter and worse methods of moral thinking – methods
th
that involve constraints on moral deliberators and on
the circumstances in which they deliberate. For
Au
instance, according to one variety of constructiv-
ism, called the ‘ideal observer’ theory (Firth, 1952;
Carson, 1984), the proper method of moral thinking
requires that moral deliberators thinking about a
certain moral issue must for example have certain
intellectual virtues and sufficient knowledge of non-
moral facts to be in a position to arrive at moral
verdicts that have the status of being true. But what
is crucial to the ideal observer view and constructivist
views generally is that it is the attitudes of ideal obser-
vers that constitute or make true certain moral judg-
ments. So, although the constructivist accepts the
independence thesis (in addition to cognitivism,
truth, and convergence), she embraces the following
Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (2006), vol. 9, pp. 5–10
Objectivity in Moral Discourse 9
modest form of this thesis in contrast to the strong
form embraced by the ontological objectivist:
Although the truth of a moral sentence is independent
of the stances of actual individuals and groups, moral
truth is ultimately constituted by the stances of ideal
individuals or groups – call them ‘ideal stances.’
Granted, some moral constructivists introduce
ontological talk of moral properties and facts at this
point (Rawls, 1980; Scanlon, 1998), understanding
such properties and facts to be ‘constructions’
grounded in facts about moral convergence. But a
moral constructivist need not make these ontological
claims; she can rest content in emphasizing the impor-
y
tance of there being a method of moral inquiry that
op
would lead all or most ideal agents (agents who are
engaged in moral thinking under ideal circumstances)
to converge in a great many of their moral convictions
C
(Smith, 1994). What the constructivist hopes to do,
then, is develop a meta-ethical view that satisfies the
four main objectivist theses without (apparently) hav-
al
ing to embrace heavy-duty ontological assumptions,
onand thereby vindicate the objectivity of moral dis-
course. In short: moral objectivity without (moral)
ontology.
Of course, any constructivist view carries the bur-
den of spelling out a moral methodology or process of
moral reasoning that would lead ideal moral
inquirers to converge in their moral views. The task
of doing so poses a seeming dilemma for the moral
constructivist (Timmons, 2004). On the one hand, if
the favored moral methodology that is to be a basis
for moral truth is characterized in morally neutral
terms, then the constraints on such reasoning will be
insufficient to lead those following the method to
reach the level of convergence in their moral verdicts
that a vindication of objectivism requires. This would
mean, according to the constructivist, that there is
no objective moral truth about those moral matters
regarding which moral methodology fails to yield
convergence under ideal conditions. Hence, the
view would be committed to a kind of moral error
theory – there is no fact of the matter in relation to a
great many moral issues, contrary to what we
suppose. On the other hand, if, in order to make
the moral methodology yield substantive moral ver-
dicts, one characterizes the methodology making
use of moral assumptions, then relative to one set of
moral assumptions the method will yield one set
of moral ‘truths,’ but relative to a competing set of
moral assumptions the method will yield a different
and perhaps conflicting set of moral ‘truths.’ But this
commits the constructivist to moral relativism, which,
as we have seen, is at odds with the idea that moral
 10 Objectivity in Moral Discourse
discourse is objective – that with respect to a large
number of moral issues there is a single truth of
the matter. Avoiding the error theory and relativism
and thereby preserving objectivity is thus the main
challenge for the moral constructivist.
Conclusion
The issue of moral objectivity, involving, as we have
seen, semantic, metaphysical, and epistemological
issues, is the central topic of meta-ethics. About the
objectivity of moral discourse there are two questions
to be distinguished. First, what sorts of objective
features or markers are genuinely possessed by
moral discourse? Second, assuming that moral dis-
course does genuinely possess such markers, how
should they be interpreted? In particular, do they
require, for their vindication, some version of moral
objectivism? In response to these questions, we have
surveyed a number of currently debated meta-ethical
options, including two conceptions of objectivity.
al
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