Gibbard's Study Of Normative Expressionism

There is a dilemma for non-cognitivism in contemporary Western meta-ethics.On the one hand,they think that moral judgment is merely an expression of the judge’s sentiments and attitudes toward the object of judgment,rather than an assertion of the attributes of the judgment object.Therefore,there is no truth.On the other hand,most ethicists have always pursued moral certainty or normative knowledge.According to the tradition of Western philosophy since Plato,the normative knowledge of ethics should be the justified true belief.However,if moral judgments have no truth,how can they become part of normative knowledge? This is a problem that non-cognitive needs to respond.Recognizing the truth and of moral judgment is also a premise for ensuring the validity of moral argument,so in fact,the more fundamental and universal query of non-cognitivism is: how to explain the validity of moral argument while insisting on non-cognitive stance? This article starts from this issue,and bases on the Norm-Expressivism of Allan Gibbard(1942-),and discusses how he leads non-cognitivism out of the predicament.From three aspects of expressivism,moral psychology and moral semantics,Gibbard explores some issues like the basis for moral judgments,the rationality of moral judgments,and how to measure the truth of moral judgments.On the basis of these,he solves the problem of the validity of moral arguments.And further,he explains how the normative knowledge in non-cognitive context is possible,and provides a theoretical basis for guiding and restraining people’s moral behavior.This article mainly contains five parts:First,I introduce the theoretical background of Gibbard’s Norm-Expressivism from the opposition between cognitivism and non-cognitivism.The easiest and straightforward ways to solve the problem of the validity of moral arguments is that moral judgments are capable of being true or false,it’s also the view of cognitivism.But,there are some defects in cognitivism,like the problem of non-naturalism that it would be very difficult to understand how we can determine what good is;the problem of metaphysics and epistemology that naturalism would solve;and the problem of skepticism and nihilism of Mackie’s Error-Theory.And non-cognitivism has some kind of intuitive rationality,and it is more able to explain why moral judgment has the characteristics of expressing sentiment that pure factual judgment does not have.So the non-cognitivists does not give up its position.In this background,Gibbard proposes the Norm-Expressivism theory.Second,I expound the main viewpoint of Gibbard’s Norm-Expressivism.Gibbard hopes to explain the meaning of moral predicates by describing the mental state of the judge.Gibbard thinks that the moral question are questions about the rationality of types of sentiment.An act is morally wrong if and only if it’s rational for the judge that the agent who performed the action to feel guilty about having done it,and for other people to feel angry at him for having done it.And this is equivalent to the judge accepting the norm system that allows the above sentimental reactions.After that,he proposes the concept of Plan-Expressivism.Making a plan X is equivalent to expressing "X is something to do".The approval of "X is something to do" is equivalent to making a normative judgment of "should do X".Thus,when we make a moral judgment or any normative judgment,what is expressed is the state in which the judge accepts the corresponding norm or plan.Gibbard’s interpretation of the meaning of moral judgment lays the foundation for responding to the question of the validity of the moral arguments.Third,through the comparison with other non-cognitivist’s solutions to the validity of moralarguments,explaining the solution and advantages of Gibbard’s which based on the Norm/Plan-Expressivism theory.Before Gibbard,some non-cognitivists have tried,but they are not satisfactory.Based on the prescriptive and universal characteristics of moral judgment,Hare weakens or even avoids the problem that non-cognitivism cannot give the true value of moral judgment.According to an sentimental projection viewpoint,Blackburn understands the logical relationship between the premise of the moral argument and the conclusion as the relationship between the emotional attitudes expressed by these sentences.However,he not only confuses attitudinal self-consistency and logical self-consistency,but also cannot provide a unified explanation for the validity of moral arguments and non-moral arguments.Gibbard overcomes these shortcomings and builds a factual-normative world.In this possible world,any normative judgment can be translated into a descriptive statement,that is,all the normative predicates in the normative judgment are replaced by descriptive predicates.In this way,the premises and conclusions in the moral argument were given truth-value,thus ensuring the validity of moral argument.Later,with the introduction of the Plan-Expressivism theory,Gibbard has a new interpretation of the truth of moral judgment.Moral judgment is the same as the plan-laden judgment,and is given the “minimal” truth.If we must find an explanation for the "truth" of moral judgment,then it does not mean conforming to objective reality,but an indispensable requirement for regulating people’s behavior.Fourth,it expounds the criticism to Gibbard’s theoretical system and its solutions to the validity of moral arguments.And Gibbard responded to these criticisms.Once the concept of Norm-Expressivism has been put forward,it has received extensive attention.However,it is still in doubt by cognitivism and even non-cognitivism,like,Can a rational moral sentiment really become an intrinsic motivation for moral judgment? Does the interpretation of the norm make an infinite loop error? Can the concept of rationality really provide a descriptive explanation? Does the predicate replacement program abandon the fundamental position of non-cognitivism? In this regard,Gibbard re-presented and revised the conceptions of morality,norms and rationality.He makes it clear that his theory and program did not deviate from the non-cognitivism system from beginning to end.Finally,it clarifies Gibbard’s thoughts on how possible normative knowledge can be viewed from a non-cognitive perspective.Non-cognitivist has never conceived objective normative knowledge,because they think that moral judgments are not able of being true or false.In the process of defending the validity of moral argumentation,Gibbard provides a reasonable explanation for the truth of moral judgment,it’s a fundamental requirement that recognize the possibility of normative knowledge in a non-cognitive context.Gibbard’s Norm-Expressivism represents the latest developments and latest theoretical results of non-cognitive solutions to the validity of moral arguments.He not only retains the sentimental meaning of moral judgment,but also explains how moral judgment has true or false.To some extent,this promotes the understanding and research of the fusion of non-cognitive and cognitive theory.More importantly,exploring normative knowledge has practical value for perfecting social moral system.There is great significance for us to understand the objectivity and universality of moral requirements.The certainty of moral knowledge guarantees the authority of moral norm.In practice,the role of the norm is to guide and constrain behavior.It helps to promote the construction of a harmonious society.This is the significance of studying Gibbard’s ethical theory.