META-ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

METAPHILOSOPHY Vol, 16, Nos. 2 & 3, April/July 1985 0026-1068 $2.00

META-ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

ROBERT ELLIOT

I

There is an important distinction to be borne in mind between (i) theories about what has value and (ii) theories about what it is for a thing to have value. The first kind of theory is a normative theory, at least in the sense that it endeavours to specify just what values there are. The second kind of theory is a mete-ethical theory; loosely, it attempts to explain the nature of value. Quite obviously (i) and (ii) are connected. If someone claims that X is a value, or that 0 has value, and if X could not be a value, or 0 could not have value, then he or she would be mistaken. Theories of the second kind constrain theories of the first kind; they may be thought of as demarcating an area of possible normative theories.

This provides the basis for a cluster of closely related arguments against the possibility of an environmental ethic. If successful, such arguments are decisive since they do not show merely that an environmental ethic is at odds with entrenched normative moral theories; in fact it probably is. What the arguments would show is that an environmental ethic is impossible, self- contradictory, inconsistent, incoherent or the like. Such arguments attempt to connect an environmental ethic with meta-ethical objectivism of some kind or other and then to argue that objectivism is false or inconsistent. A variant is to argue that subjectivism is the correct meta-ethic and then to attempt to demonstrate that subjectivism cannot sustain an environmental ethic. The appropriate environmentalist response to these moves is to argue for one of: (A) objectivism has not been shown false, incoherent, inconsistent, or the like; or (B) an environmental ethic does not require an objectivist mela-ethic since a subjectivist meta-ethic is adequate to the task. I shall argue for (B), having first spelt out the reasons why (A) is not an attractive option.

I1

Meta-ethical objectivism is seen by some, for example McCloskey 1980, Godfrey-Smith 1980, Mannison 1980, and Regan 1980, to be necessary to provide the required support for an environmental ethic. Certainly an objectivist meta-ethic would leave open the possibility that the objects of concern for deep ecologists are indeed appropriate objects of value. If an object’s value is determined solely by the presence or absence of some non-natural property objectively possessed, then it is at least possible that rocks, trees lakes, mountains or whole ecosystems should possess this property. If this possibility turned out to obtain, then many of the claims made by advocates

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of an environmental ethic would find theoriectical support. For example, support would be given to the claim that the natural environment has intrinsic value independently of any actual, or even possible, assignments of value to it by valuers. In other words, some theoretical basis would be given to the claim that possible worlds that are devoid of valuers nevertheless possess intrinsic value.

Perhaps most importantly, an objectivist meta-ethic would give sense to the injunction that human chauvinsim should be rejected. One thing that characterises one variety of human chauvinism is its identification of value with valuings by human beings. Things are said to be of value insofar as they answer back to, satisfy or serve the interests, attitudes, desires or preferences of human beings. An objectivist meta-ethic does leave open a way for tackling this normative position. It provides a theoretical base for the creation of a competing normative ethic. However, it does not provide normative support for the ethic over and above providing the logical space for it. This can be seen once it is noted that many meta-ethical objectivists adopt a human chauvinist normative position (or some extension thereof). Thus it might be insisted that the objects of deep, ecological concern do not possess the requisite non-natural property, as McCloskey insists.

This is not to denigrate the strategic value of winning acceptance for an objectivist meta-ethic. For instance, if oppostion to environmental ethics centred on a refusal to accept them as starters in the normative stakes, then, if someone who initially thought this way could be convinced of an objectivist theory of value, he or she would be rationally compelled to reconsider his or her initial response. In other words such a theory of value could be used as a lever; first, to persuade someone that an environmental ethic is a possible ethic and, second, to persuade someone to give serious consideration to the normative content of such an ethic. However, it is not clear just how much help an objectivist account of value is going to be beyond this. It is certainly not going to compel acceptance of an environmental ethic, since, as I have said, there is room for argument concerning the objects, states of affairs and so forth, to which objective value attaches.

Regan has some points to make about the connection between environmental ethics and an objectivist meta-ethic which are worth considering. He introduces the notion of inherent goodness, which, as far as I can understand it, is a species of intrinsic value. He makes some clarificatory remarks about the notion: (i) inherent goodness is independent of the attitudinal states of all conscious beings; (ii) inherent goodness is a supervenient property; (iii) inherent goodness is an objective property; (iv) the fitting attitude to objects possessing inherent goodness is admiring respect (Regan 1981, pp. 30-31). Regan appears to be suggesting that an object has inherent goodness utterly independently of any valuer. For instance, he contrasts his view with the view Wittgenstein espouses in the Tractatus to the effect that there is no value in the world. Regan claims that there is value in the world and that it can be discovered. He is not merely claiming that objects which have intrinsic

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value are valued for their own sakes and because of properties that they objectively possess. That view is compatible with the subjectivist clairli that it is an evaluation by a valuer that brings value into the world. For example, it might he said that my positive valuation of temperate rainforest, because of the objective (nonmoral) properties it possesses, confers value on it. Regan’s claim is significantly stronger. Referring to the question of the value of wild stretches of the Colorado River, Regan says that ‘the value of the river’s being free . . . is an objective property of the river’ (Regan 1981, p. 31). He suggests that the value of the river is something it has completely independently of how it was, is, will be or could be regarded.

If Regan’s view of inherent goodness is correct (and I should point out that he does not advance it with confidence) then the possibility of an environmental ethic is open. However, there is a catelogue of problems associated with nieta-ethical objectivism which makes it decidedly unattractive. First, meta-ethical objectivists face the problem of explaining the kind of thing that non-natural intrinsic value is. Regan says it is an objective property which is supervenient on, or a consequence of, other objective properties of things. He also makes it clear that value is in no sense relational; it is supposed to inhere in the object itself. There is a certain mysterious flavour about values so construed. My complaint here is not exactly that which J.L. Mackie labels ‘The argument from queerness’ (Mackie 1977, pp. 28-29). I concede that the argument from queerness is in many ways an argument from ignorance. There are many kinds of things, for example transfinite ordinals, neutrinos, black holes and various other entities, from the more esoteric reaches of mathe- matics and physics, that strike me as mysterious. Learning the appropriate theory may render them much less so. However, it is not clear to me how the similar demystification is to proceed with the non-natural, non-relational properties that are identified with values. Moreover, Regan himself admits to a certain bafflement. He says that he is not sure which are the properties upon which inherent goodness (intrinsic value) supervenes and he is not clear about how we come to perceive the presence of the supervenient property. Given this, there would be some theoretical advantage in dispensing with objective intrinsic value.

The question of how we become aware of objective values is difficult. The usual claim is that we come to know them by means of intuition. And indeed modern, normative, moral philosophy plays fast and loose with this notion. Appeals to intuition are made to compel acceptance of normative claims, to defeat normative principles and so on. Understood as appeals to the details of commonsense moral theory or to the details of our moral pyschology such appeals are innocuous. They can be integrated into a thoroughly subjectivist meta-ethical theory. However, meta-ethical objectivism typically posits a faculty of moral intuition which somehow delivers insights into the value structure of the world. This is where the argument from weirdness gains a foothold once more. It is not clear what the moral sense is like. It is a theoretical anomaly.

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Part of the reason that it is a theoretical anomaly is that it does not reveal the connection between the (presumably, cognitive) moral sense and the affective and the volitional. Regan, for example, says that there is an appropriate attitude which goes with the realisation that an object has inherent value. One might well ask why this is so. He remarks:

Respect is appropriate because this is a fitting attitude to have toward that which has value in its own right. One must realise that its being valuable is not contingent on one’s happening to value it, so that to treat it mere& as a means to human ends is to mistreat it. (Regan 198 1, p. 3 1)

There is, here, at least a suggestion of a link between the cognitive and the affective and the volitional, since the realisation of inherent value is supposed to ‘gve rise to’ the preservation principle. However, there is no obvious connection provided by the meta-ethic. I might note the presence of inherent goodness but simply be indifferent to it or even sneer. Perhaps the suggestion is that the moral sense is build into us as part of a larger unit which includes appropriately linked affective and volitional elements as well. In other words, in most of us the recognition of inherent goodness triggers certain emotions and motivates us to act so as to preserve what has intrinsic value. But filling out the story this way shifts the rneta-ethic back towards subjectivism.

There are also well known problems with the epistemology of non-natural objective values. For example, it is a possibility that all of a person’s judge- ments about what is good and right turn out to be false. As Richard Brandt reports ‘one of the most eminent non-naturalists has remarked that, in complex situations, whether we apprehend our duty aright is very largely a matter of good fortune’ (Brandt 1959, pp. 188-189).

If intrinsic value is literally an objective property of objects, states of affairs, actions and so on, then it is surprising that it should just now be discovered in wild nature. One reply is to argue that present environmental ethics have historical antecedents which likewise attribute intrinsic value to wild nature. Nevertheless the appeal of such ethics seems to be dramatically increasing and I do not think the objectivist can explain this as easily as the subjectivist. Have the shutters only just dropped from our moral sense that we may apprehend now what we previously could not? Are there more morally mature people around now than there used to be? Have we only recently succeeded in throwing off the distorting prejudices that made human chauvinism compelling? The phenomenon of environmentalism seems more easily ex- plained in terms of attitudinal changes that have their source in such things as social, political and economic movements. Again the objection amounts to a difficulty rather than anything like a knockdown argument.

There are also problems in offering an account of how we come to learn to use the moral terms if their meanings are only explicable in terms of elusive, non-natural properties. It may be that clever meta-ethical objectivists are able to meet the various objections and solve the various problems to which I have


alluded. However, their way forward does not appear either straight or easy. To this extent the existence of any dependency relation between an objectivist meta-ethic and an environmental ethic renders the possibility of the latter more remote.

Debates about which normative theory is correct would, irrespective of whether objectivism or subjectivism is correct, take the form of presenting a variety of situations, states of affairs etc. which are deemed to be valuable, in an attempt to derive general principles that systematise our valuations. Thus the environmental ethicist may forcefully direct the attention of the disputants to situations that he or she thinks clearly show that the objects of his or her special concern do have value. He or she might then suggest general principles that offer an explanation of this and which may highlight similarit- ies between such situations and others that are more widely accorded value, Such effects might be challenged by the production of counter-examples to the general claims, by pointing to inconsistencies and contradictions, and by the production of alternative explanations of why the situations which the environmentalist erroneously thinks have value merely seem to have value. In short, the dispute between environmental ethicists and their opponents will take a form with which we are quite familiar in the context of disputes between competing normative ethics or narrower scope. Acceptance of meta-ethical objectivism as against subjectivism does not alter the structure, the dynamic of normative disputes about environmental ethics. Such disputes do not become possible only within the framework of an objectivist meta-ethic. I turn now to a discussion of meta-ethical subjectivism.

A subjectivist might claim that an object or state of affairs has value if and only if it is valued by some valuer. The ‘is’ is to be read in a way that allows an object to have value even though it is not presently valued by any valuer. For example, it may be that no one presently existing values to any degree whatsoever the continued existence of the snaildarter. However, a subjectivist might claim that it has value if it will be valued at some future time by some valuer. I shall suggest presently that this is not in fact a theory about value so much as a theory about what has value. For the moment though, let us try to think of it as the former, and trace the consequences for an environmental ethic.

There are two things an environmental ethicist might want to say that are precluded by this version of subjectivism. First, it does not allow him to claim that there are future states of affairs that have value eventhough there is no one around, and never will be anyone around, who places any value on them whatsoever. This can be stated somewhat more formally:

Claim1: Possibly there is some X at time, which has value and which is not valued by any valuer at time,.

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This falls foul of the first version of subjectivism because that version says:

Principlel: If X has value then X is valued by some valuer contempor aneous with X.

It is here claimed that an object or a state of affairs has value \if and only if it is valued by some valuer, and only if it affects such a valuer's state of mind. The point of the second clause is to rule out the following kinds of case. P claims that he values the continued existence of the Amazon rain forests even after he is no longer around to think about them, enjoy them, perceive them and the like. No-one else shares P's valuation, and so some might suggest that the rain forests would no longer have value. The have, however, been valued at some time by someone so without the additional clause they would continue to be bearers of value.

Strictly speaking, it is not objects which have value on this view, rather it is objects at a time which have value. The basic idea is that values cease to exist when valuers cease to exist. Value may attach to objects for a while and then fail to attach and then attach once more. Values will vary as valuations vary.

The second thing that this version of subjectivism prohibits is the claim that even if there had never been any valuer, the objects of his special ,concern would nevertheless have value. We can imagine a world in which there are complex forest eco-systems that do not include valuers. The environmentalist might want to claim that such a world has value and that, from a value point of view, it is preferable to other worlds (maybe even the actual world). Clearly this violates Principlel. It may be more formally rendered as:

Claimz : In a world other than the actual world and in which there are no valuers there is possibly some X which has value.

Claiml and Claimz are certainly prominent elements in various environmental ethics that have been advocated and there is a tension between then on the one hand and the first version of subjectivism on the other.

There are, however, numerous ways in which some of the concerns of an environmental ethic can be fitted to this first version of subjectivism. To begin with there is no restriction on the kind of thing that can have value: anything can, provided that it is actually, or will be, valued. On this view forests, lakes, mountains, complex eco-systems and so forth can all have value. Environmentalist policies such as the preservation of wilderness areas, the conservation of resources, the maintenance of species diversity can all be supported within the framework provided by this theory of value. Certain reasons cannot be advanced in defence of these policies of course. Thus it is out of court to argue that national parks should be created so as to ensure that pieces of wilderness will exist long after human, even animal, life is extinct.

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I maintained earlier that this first version of subjectivism is a norrnative theory in disguise. It is this in two ways at least. First, as I stated it, it em- bodied the following normative value: whatever is valued by anyone has value (restricted in the way appropriate to the first version of subjectivism). Indeed some philosophers, notably R.M. Hare, have attempted to devise a full normative position, embodying such a principle, from purely conceptual considerations, However such attempts do not succeed. Conceptual reasons alone cannot compel one to accept the valuations of others and somehow to accommodate them (e.g. by adopting a Harean preference utilitarianism) within one's own valuations. (See, for example, Robinson 1981)

Second,' there is a tendency to turn this kind of subjectivism into a strange kind of objectivism. Thus my valuing a particular stand of mountain ash is somehow conceived of as generating a property which independently, but additively, attaches to the stand of mountain ash. The picture that emerges is one of the stand of mountain ash acquiring value independently of my valuations but not independently of valuations. Despite the connection that is posited between the value of the object and the valuers who place some value on it, what we end up with is a kind of objectivism in which the value is somehow 'out there is the world'. My saying that an object has value, is, so far as subjectivism is concerned, ultimately analysable in terms of my attitudes. One thing to which I might not have a favourable attitude is the anti-environmental attitude of someone else. The mere fact that someone else attributes negative value to the stand of mountain ash need not impress me. It only need impress me if my normative moral theory requires that I take account of thc preferences of others. Claiming that it is my attitudes, in some suit- ably broad sense, that determine the normative theory on the basis of which I make evaluations, does not in the least compel me to give the same weight, or any weight, to the attitudes of others.

Subjectivism is a meta-ethical theory and normative elements need to be disentangled from any attempt at articulating it. Part of what went wrong with the version of subjectivism discussed above is that it failed to take sufficient notice of what is central to a subjectivist meta-ethic. What is distinctive of subjectivism is that it insists that valuations are made from, and are only answerable to, particular valuational points of view. Taking subjectivism seriously involves relating valuations to particular points of view, that is to the points of view of individual valuers. Co-incidence of valuational points of view is not ruled out. Quite the opposite would seem to be the case, since it is presumably the existence of shared, or partially shared, points of view that makes reasoned moral disputes possible and which gives point to moral arguments for and against policies, courses of action and such like.

Consider the case of P who attributes intrinsic value to rainforests. The question .ive need to ask ourselves is not how P's absence from a state of affairs which includes the rain forests affects our valuation of them. Rather the question is how it bears on P's valuation of them. Taking P at his word, he has implied that his valuation of the rain forests is not dependent upon

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his perceiving them, enjoying them, contemplating them or even on the possibility of his doing things of this kind. P has claimed that from his valuational point of view the continued existence of Amazon rain forests is preferable, other things being equal, to their destruction at any time whatsoever. All this is just to admit what subjectivism minimally requires, namely that the arbiter of questions about the values of objects, states of affairs, and SO on, is a valuational viewpoint. If P asks Q whether the forests have value that is a question about what is true of forests given Q’s valuational point of view. We can, in a general way, which makes reference to Q’s preferences, desires, wants, and so on, specify the conditions in which Q would assert ‘The continued existence of the forest is of value’. And P, of course, need not be swayed by how Q sees things from Q s valuational point of view.

Imagine that P and Q disagree over a preservationist policy. P supports it. Q objects to it. The dispute hinges on P’s preparedness to assent to ‘The continued existence of the forest is of value’, whereas Q refuses to assent to it. P can be taken as claiming that given his valuational point of view (which presumably includes environmentalist values) it is a good thing that the policy be carried out. (Q, of course can agree that this is correct from P‘s point of view.) Q, on the other hand, can be taken as saying that given her valuational point of view the policy ought not to be pursued. The dispute is a normative one: it is a dispute about items viewed from valuational points of view. The dispute is not one which can be resolved by an appeal to meta-ethical considerations. Thus if Q attempts to counter P by pointing out that the state of affairs which he claims to value is one which does not include him, it is open to P to respond that the relevant element in P’s valuational point of view is represented by (i) rain forests have value, not by (ii) rain forests have value only if they are contemporaneous with me or some other valuer. That is sufficient to deflect Q’s criticism. Thus subjectivism, properly understood and properly represented, allows for at least one of the distinctive claims of an environmentalist normative theory, namely Claim1 .

I have said that subjectivism does not necessitate, although it does permit, that valuational points of view other than one’s own be taken into account when assessing intrinsic value. And when others do get a look in it is by courtesy of an aspect (for example, a commitment to tolerance) of one’s own point of view. This relativisation of value to points of view is not just the relativisation of values to valuers. Quite obviously valuers are subject to moral development and even moral conversion, the result of which is either modest, or dramatic, change in valuational point of view. As those attitudes, desires, preferences and the like which are relevant to moral valuation change, so too do the frameworks with reference to which particular claims about value are judged. This suggests that the proper relativisation which subjectivism de- mands is to valuers at a time. And of course subjectivism does not require that the points of view of the one changing valuer count, in some sense or other, equally in determinations of value. There is nothing amiss with the claim that P at t l assents to ‘Rain forests have value’ and at t2 dissents,


provided there has been a change or shift in the relevant valuational elements in P s point of view between t l and t z . One complaint that might be made about this relativisation of value to temporal stages of valuers is that it provides an insubstantial base upon which to ground any normative moral theory. I shall reply to this presently. It is useful, first of all, to see how this version of subjectivism handles Claimz .

As I have noted, environmentalists make claims about the respective value of possible worlds even where some of those worlds are devoid of valuers. They may even claim that the value of certain worlds devoid of valuers is greater than that of the actual world. Are such judgments and comparisons incoherent? Two ways of showing that they are suggest themselves. First, one could argue that they are incoherent because they involve judgments about states of affairs which do not include valuers. This line of argument is not open for the kinds of reasons offered above. In other words Principlel is to be rejected. Second, one could concede that the absence of valuers does not by itself preclude value but maintain, nevertheless, that valuations cannot extend beyond the actual world.

This second option can be given two distinct glosses. To begin with, one could argue that it is practically impossible to have valuations which extend beyond the actual world (or, more liberally, beyond worlds close to the actual world). The claim then is that we do not know exactly what our valuations of these worlds are. I say ‘are’ rather than ‘would be’ for a reason that will be made clear in a moment. An appropriate response at this point is to refer to the large number of valuers who behave as if, speak as if, and act as if they do make exactly these kinds of valuations. In the face of this it seems high-handed to claim that such valuers are not making genuine, real valuations. I t is simply a fact that people have perferences concerning worlds other than the actual world and that they are prepared to rank possible worlds in accordance with preferences which must really count as of the moral kind if any do. Even if this reply is inadequate the environmentalist does not lose out altogether, since the point of this first gloss is not that there is a logical bar to inter-world valuations. Rather there are alleged practical difficulties involved, for example ones to do with imaginative capacites.

It is important to realise that subjectivism does not suppose that valuers be able to estimate what valuations they would make if they were in different possible worlds. That might be an interesting enterprise in itself, and it might even be necessary given certain normative moral premises, but it is not required by meta-ethical subjectivism. Maybe if P were in a world quite different from this, he might turn out to have very different attitudes, desires, preferences, etc., to those he has in this world right now. That is no more relevant t o questions above value than is the fact that P may be surprised by the attitudes etc. that he turns out to have in the future in the actual world. We should add one more element to the value-relativisation matrix. Along with point of view and time we should include world.

The second gloss that can be given of the second option does not rely on

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practical, empirical barriers to making inter-world perference rankings. The argument would instead be that such rankings are impossible for logical reasons. How the case for this would be made out I am at a loss to say. Once again it seems appropriate to posit the apparent counter-examples to the claim. People do make such preference rankings, for example there are possible worlds in which the Gordon River is not dammed that I rank higher than the actual world. The only possible constraint on logical grounds would seem to be that what is valued to degree X must be logically possible.' This said, there is no obvious reason why subjectivism cannot accommodate both of the environmentalist's distinctive claims. I do not have to be in other worlds in order to rank them value-wise. Inter-world valuations like intra- world valuations are made from the point of view of a valuer in the actual world.

Several paragraphs back I foreshadowed an objection to the subjectivsim that relativised valuations to a valuer, a time, and a world. The suggestion was that such a meta-ethic would be insufficiently stable to ground a normative, moral theory. It is true that the value-related attitudes do change over time both at the individual and societal level. This is a fact about morality which a meta-ethic must accommodate and subjectivism does this very well. I suppose that objectivism may explain it also, in terms of increasing moral enlightenment, in terms of discoveries of new values and in terms of the realisation that previously held moral beliefs resulted from failure of the moral sense. On this view the development of normative moral theories is like the development of a science. However, I find the idea of a moral science, that is more than just the attempt to articulate and systematise (changing) elements in our moral psychology, difficult to swallow. What is clear is that subjectivism can tell a story about moral development which is at least as plausible as the story objectivism tells. I agree that subjectivism does introduce potential instability but, since it is unlikely that this potential will be realised, this is not a real worry. As a matter of fact changes in moral systems take place slowly, hence the widespread normative resistance to an environmental ethic despite local instances of rapid moral conversion. If valuational points of view changed both frequently and rapidly then normative moral philosophy might be impossible. The data base with which it worked would be too volatile.

A related worry that the environmental ethicist might have about subjectivism is that it leaves valuers as the source of, or at least essential to, values. While it does admit that Claiml and Claimz are perfectly coherent, it may not seem to secure the independence of values from valuers which was initially hoped for. The complaint then, is not that subjectivism renders environmental ethics anthroprocentric. Clearly nonhumans can be valuers. Nor does subjectivism restrict the intrinsically valuable to whatever answers back to the

Even this might be too strong since it is not obviously logically impossible that there be coherent valuations of logically impossible states of affairs.

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interests of valuers, since forests, rivers, mountains may be counted as valuable even though they serve no one’s interest at all. I think that the core of the worry is th.at if there had never been any valuers at any time then nothing would have intrinsic value. If complex eco-systems had developed on the earth without sentient animal life emerging, then those eco-systems would have coiitairied nothing of value. This is true. It is simply to say what subjectivism admits, namely valuers are essential in order for value to be intro- duced into the world. And of course objectivism does not require this. How- ever, given that I, for example, exist and given that I accept an environmental ethic, it is possible for me to evaluate the possibility described in the previous paragraph. If that other possible world had been the actual world, then it would have contained intrinsic value. It may even have contained more intrinsic value than the actual world. This is a judgment 1 may make given my valuatiorial point of view at this time in this world. What more could the environmental ethicist require?

Perhaps what really worries the critic of subjectivism is that I might have turned out to have had a thoroughly hunian chauvinist valuational point of view. If 1 were the only valuer in the world, then it might be thought that the forests, and so on, would have no intrinsic value. In other words whether or not the forests have intrinsic value is going to depend on whether I happen to have the appropriate moral psychology. This problem can be handled in the smie fashion as the previous one. If the world had been different and if I had, ill that world, a human chauvinist ethic, then I would have been wrong in my valuations. Again this is a judgment whch I make from my present valuational point of view. The case is analagous to one in which I review my past valuations. I once thought that forests did not have intrinsic value. Now I think that they do. From my present valuational point of view I may con- demn my earlier one.

There art: two things a critic might say at this point. First, he or she could observe that from my earlier evaluational point of view the later one may be concemned. Agreed. Second, he or she could observe that my present evaluational point of view might not be a lasting one: I might, for instance, revert to human chauvinism. Agreed. If these possibilities con- stitute problems which cannot but perturb the environmental ethicist, then there is nothing more I cay say. However, I do not think that they should perturb him or her for two reasons. First, it is only while a particular normative ethic seems to us to represent and express our moral psychology that we are likely to want to elevate it to theoretical permanency. I admit to feeling this way. I am convinced that an environmental ethic is correct and its widespread violation does more than sadden me. However, if my moral psychology dramatically changed, then my attachment to an environmental ethic would dissolve. It should be remembered though, that the permanency of the environmental ethic, expressed in my valuational point of view, is tied inextricably to my commitment to it. Commitment to it is its guarantee. Now I think that this removes the critic’s worry. The upshot of this is that the

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ethic will be around for as long as it matters to me that it is around and for as long as its rejection strikes me as unthinkable. Second, even if the worry remains it is not clear that it is removed by the step to meta-ethical objectivism. What should matter to an objectivist is that his or her moral beliefs mirror the moral truth. He or she must admit that there are many instances in which we are mistaken in our moral beliefs. We used to think X was right, but realise that we were mistaken. Leastways we think we were mistaken. However, we might later come to believe that our original judgment was correct; that we did not step from error into truth but slid from truth into error. In other words, objectivism offers no guarantee of permanency for normative ethics which goes further than the present constitution of our moral psychology. Subjectivism accepts that there are transformations in valuational points of view. By the same token, objectivism must accept that views (theories) about the moral facts change from time to time. Unless it can be shown that meta-ethical objectivism carries with it an epistemology that more or less guarantees the moral truth, it is difficult to see why it should be pre- ferred to subjectivism. As far as I have established no such guarantee is provided. One person’s self-evident moral truth may be another’s self-evident moral falsehood; one person’s rational insight may be another’s intellectual error.

The subjectivism that I have described allows for talk about the truth and falsity of moral judgments. Crude subjectivisms, such as emotivism, do not allow for this, and this places them at a disadvantage with respect to objectivism. To see how subjectivism can admit the truth or falsity of moral judgments, it is useful to give some attention to the meta-ethical theory developed by D.H. Munro. (see Munro 1967).

Monro describes a view which might be ‘called subjective naturalism. On this view moral judgments are held to be the kinds of things that are true or false and their truth or falsity is empirically determinable. To say that actions of kind K are good is to say that they are actions of which the individual making the claim approves. One way of understanding Monro is to take him to be offering a reductive analysis of moral judgments. Thus moral judgments turn out to be judgments about states of mind. To claim that abortion is wrong is simply to claim that one has a negative attitude towards acts of aborting human foetuses. When one’s opponent claims that abortion is permissible he or she is to be understood as reporting that he or she has no such negative attitudes to acts of that kind.

An obvious objection to this view is that it fails to explain how conflicting moral judgments engage one another. On the subjective naturalist view conflicting judgments will pass each other by; they will simply be reports about the states of mind of their respective utterers.

A first response to this objection is to avoid the reduction of moral judg-


ments to judgments about states of mind and to recast the theory in terms of the reduction of moral judgments to verbal expressions of states of mind. It follows from this view that moral judgments are not the kind of thing that can be true or false. At best they are either appropriate or inappropriate. (Still, in some reasonably clear sense they may be used to deceive, mislead, distort, tell lies. Certainly I can cause someone to hold false beliefs about my states of mind by expressing approval when I disapprove. This would be especially useful in combatting an extremely contrary adversary.) However, one thing that this new reductive account has going for it is that it affords some explanation of the engagement of conflicting moral claims. The engagement is supposed to reside in the different attitudinal responses to the things under moral scrutiny.

I t is not clear, however, that subjective naturalism cannot be build on in such a way to capture conflict of this kind. What is more, emotivism, in throwing cognitive content out of moral judgments, appears to throw out too much. If subjective naturalism may be objected to on the grounds that it fails to capture to capture a salient element we tend to think is present. viz. disagreement, emotivism can be objected to on the grounds that it fails to capture another element we tend to think is present, viz. cognitive disagreement. It is at least as fair to say that moral dispute has elements of more straightforwardly empirical dispute, as it is to say that it involves emotive conflict. A subjectivism can be developed which does justice to both claims.

Even though, on Monro’s view, moral judgments do not obviously conflict they have as their objects motivational structures which do. What I report on when I judge an action to be bad is my attitude to it (as an action of a certain kind). The attitude I have is going to have motivational force. Thus it might cause me to frustrate the action, to persuade the agent to desist, to express my attitude, to evince similar attitudes in others. The emotive conflict we notice in moral disputes might be attributed to the motivational or affective context in which the judgment is made. This involves admitting that the judgments themselves do not conflict but it does suggest that the judgment immediately generates emotive conflict which may manifest itself in conflicting or potentially conflicting, actions. Given this, the advocacy of emotivism (or prescriptivism) over subjective naturalism loses some of its justification.

On a more sophisticated version of Monro’s view, the judgment that an action is good reduces to the judgment that the action stands in a certain relationship to an additional set which may include, as well as attitudes, perferences and desires. We might call this the approval relationship. It should not be taken to be a relationship which holds between a valuer and an action, rather it holds between an action and an attitudinal set which may be formally represented as an hierarchical perference structure, a set of general principles, a system of norms or something of that ilk. Moral judgments are thus not straightforwardly reports about their u t te red states of mind. Instead they are judgments, the truth-conditions for which, can be specified in terms

116 ROBERT ELLIOT

of the appfoval relation. Cognitive content is returned to moral judgments without reducing that content to first-person avowals. My claim that A is right will be true, relative to a given valuational framework, if A stands in the approval relation to that framework. Moreover the judgment turns out to be about the action as much as about my current mental states.

Importantly, valuational frameworks may be shared; for example, by the one person at different times and by different people at the same time. If we share a valuational framework then when I claim that A is wrong and you claim that it is not, one of us must be mistaken. This is real cognitive disagreement. Similarly, when we agree that A is right the agreement is real. It is not a case, as it is with subjective naturalism, of two people making announcements concerning their respective mental states; rather both are asserting the very same thing.

Valuational frameworks will not always be shared of course. When they are not totally shared there will frequently be a partial sharing, an overlap, and so there will be scope for some cognitive disagreement. In those cases where there is no overlap at all there will still be the kind of disagreement which I suggested was present in the case of subjective naturalism. Valua- tional frameworks presumably are embedded in a motivational context. What is more, what is distinctive of those values, preferences, desires and the like which fall into the category of the morally relevant, is that they are (usually) values which we want others to share and adopt. At least they are values to which we would wish others’ actions, and states of affairs, to conform; and they are values to which we may want all our future actions to conform. (There are problems here about moral development that need to be taken into account. Thus I might accept that a future time-slice of me will have altered values and allow, from my present valuational point of view, that this represents moral progress. This possibility is difficult to fit into the scheme I have described. One solution is to say that it is a possibility about which we are deceived. I shall not pursure the issue here.) It should be clear that the subjectivist meta-ethic I have described leaves logical space for an environmental ethic.

Brisbane College of Advanced Education Kelvin Grove, Queensland 4059 Australia

References

Brandt, Richard Ethical Theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1959. Godfrey-Smith, William “The Rights of Nonhumans and Intrinsic Values”.

in D. Mannison, M. McRobbie, R. Routley (eds) EnvironmentalPhilosophy . Canberra: Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National Uni- versity, 1980, pp. 30-47.


Mackie, J.L. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.

Mannison, Don “A Critique of a Proposal for an Environmental Ethic”. in

McCloskey. J.J . “Ecological Ethics and Its Justification: A Critical Appraisal”.

Monro, D.H. Empiricism and Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

Regan, Tom “The Nature and Possibility of an Environmental Ethic”. Environ-

Robinson, H.M. “Imagination, Prescription and Desire”. Analysis. 41, 2

Mannison, McRobbie, Routley op. cit., pp. 52-64.

in Mannison, McRobbie, Routley op. cit., pp. 65-87.

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mental Ethics. 3 (1 98 1) pp. 16-3 1.

(1981) PI). 55-59.

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META-ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS