Projectivism

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Projectivism or projectionism [1] in philosophy involves attributing (projecting) qualities to an object as if those qualities actually belong to it. It is a theory for how people interact with the world and has been applied in both ethics and general philosophy. It is derived from the Humean idea that all judgements about the world derive from internal experience, and that people therefore project their emotional state onto the world and interpret it through the lens of their own experience. Projectivism can conflict with moral realism, which asserts that moral judgements can be determined from empirical facts, i.e., some things are objectively right or wrong.

Contents

Origins

The origins of projectivism lie with David Hume, who describes the view in Treatise on Human Nature: "Tis a common observation, that the mind has a great propensity to spread itself on external objects, and to conjoin with them any internal impressions, which they occasion, and which always make their appearance at the same time that these objects discover themselves to the senses." [2]

Hume's projectivist theory of causation

Suppose for example that somebody is hit by a hammer, and sometime later a bruise appears at the point of impact. The impact of the hammer is an observable event; the bruise too is observable. The causal connection between the two events, however, is not observed or experienced, at least according to Hume. Hume believed that whenever one can claim to know something about the world, that knowledge must be derived from experience (see Hume's fork). One does not experience the causal connection between a hammer impact and the formation of a bruise. All that is observed are distinct events, occurring at the same place and time (Constant conjunction). Because one observes events of this type, one is led by induction to suppose that like causes will result in like effects, and from this one infers the notion of causation. This does not mean Hume doubted that one material object was able to cause a change or movement in another material object. It means that insofar as one talks about some cause resulting in some effect, it is not something one has learned of the world that is talked about because it is not derived from experience. Rather, one is talking about a feature of one's thinking which one is inclined to discuss as if it were a feature of the world. In short, when one believes one has observed a causal connection all one really has experienced is a conjunction between two separate events. One can only know about the world through experience, so causation as a feature of the world is something unknowable to a human being. [3]

Non-cognitivist projectivism

More recently, Simon Blackburn has been a major proponent of projectivism. Blackburn's projectivism is a version of meta-ethical anti-realism. Blackburn conveys anti-realism as the view that statements which express moral properties are constructed, and realism as the view that moral properties somehow exist independently of moral agents. A further distinction in Blackburn's projectivism is that between cognitivists and non-cognitivists. Cognitivists believe that moral claims are "truth-apt", that is capable of being true or false. Non-cognitivists, on the other hand, believe that moral claims are not truth-apt—not capable of being true or false. [4] [5] [ page needed ]

As a non-cognitivist, the projectivist holds that ethical judgments are the product of conative, rather than cognitive psychological processes. A conative psychological process or state is something similar to a stance, attitude, or disposition. These conative psychological processes are in contrast to cognitive ones, which are what are typically thought of when referring to human beings "using their reason" or perhaps being rational (at least in the narrow sense). As highly social creatures whose success as a species has been due primarily to an ability to communicate and cooperate, projectivism holds that the development of a moral interest has actually been in humans' prudential interest.

Blackburn's projectivism, which he calls quasi-realism, is based on the significance of the conative stances that are held. His idea is that these conative stances are the starting point for what the meta-ethical realist labels beliefs or even facts, like that one ought to feed one's children, or that one has moral values—real values that exist out there in the world independent of the self. Since these conative stances are essentially motivating, they can be called desires, and the realist may view them as desires connected to true beliefs about things that exist independent of mental construction. This is because as humans grow and develop, conative stances can become quite refined into a kind of moral sensibility. So for the projectivist, meta-ethical realists confuse moral sense and sensibility. The projectivist position holds that an individual's moral sensibility can become very sophisticated as they age and mature. As one experiences compassion, one comes to value compassion; or with gratitude, one comes to admire being gracious, and consider gratitude a virtue. But the projectivist is not committed to saying that an individual's response to something wrong (i.e. sense) is what determines its rightness or wrongness. The view is that the wrong-making features of actions are external, and they play a role in the development of essentially motivating moral sentiments that guide conduct. [4] [6]

The view is vulnerable to a major concern for the ethical realist: projectivism may collapse into subjectivism or some variety of moral relativism. For example, it may seem that if Hitler truly felt the Holocaust was the right thing to do, the only possible projectivist response would to be that if Hitler truly thought he was doing the right thing, others might say he was wrong, but for him, it was right. But here, projectivism does not collapse into subjectivism. Where a subjectivist sees no moral disagreement (because they believe "X is right" just means "I approve of X"), the projectivist can allow for moral disagreement. [7]

A bigger vulnerability for projectivism is that it lacks explanatory power over meta-ethics, and instead explains it away. Projectivism may stand to meta-ethics as particularism stands to ethics.

The projectivist theory of probability

The meaning of a statement that the probability that a coin lands heads is ½ , in projectivist terms, is not that the coin will either land upward or it will not, a feature of the world, but rather that the probability is a measure of one's own ignorance. Frank Ramsey (see his collected papers, edited by D. H. Mellor) and independently Bruno de Finetti, developed projectivist theories of probability in the early twentieth century. To explain their theories, the concept of degree of belief must first be introduced. [8] [9]

Consider for example that a person has a degree of belief of 1 in a particular proposition if they are completely convinced of its truth. For example, most people have a degree of belief of 1 in the proposition that 2+2=4. On the other hand, a person has a degree of belief 0 in a proposition if they are utterly convinced of its falsity; most people have a degree of belief of zero in the proposition that 2+2=5. Intermediate values are possible. A man who thinks that his dog has stolen the sausages, but is not completely sure, might have a degree of belief of 0.8 in the proposition that his dog stole the sausages.

For each person A, one can define a (partial) function CA mapping the set of propositions to the closed interval [0, 1] by stipulating that for a proposition P CA(P)=t if and only if C has a degree of belief t in the proposition P. Ramsey and de Finetti independently attempted to show that if A is rational, CA is a probability function: that is, CA satisfies the standard (Kolmogorov) probability axioms. They supposed that when one describes an event as having probability P, one really is voicing one's degrees of belief. Probabilities are not real features of the world. For example, when saying that the event that the coin lands heads up has probability ½, one does so because one's degree of belief in the proposition that the coin will land heads up is ½.

A counter-argument would be that: "This needs to be restated to show probability in a particular number of flips, not one coin flip, which DOES only have a probability of 1/2 since it only has two sides". This argument is moot, as the probability of the coin either landing on a heads or tails is 1, however, the observer is unable to accurately measure the input variables contributing to the output condition. Thus, in the projectivist view, probability is a measure of the degree to which an observer believes in a given proposition of the outcome of an event. [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is a position which encompasses many varieties such as metaphysical, mathematical, semantic, scientific, moral and epistemic. The term was first articulated by British philosopher Michael Dummett in an argument against a form of realism Dummett saw as 'colorless reductionism'.

Ethical non-naturalism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:

  1. Ethical sentences express propositions.
  2. Some such propositions are true.
  3. Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of human opinion.
  4. These moral features of the world are not reducible to any set of non-moral features.

In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics.

Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions and thus cannot be true or false. A noncognitivist denies the cognitivist claim that "moral judgments are capable of being objectively true, because they describe some feature of the world". If moral statements cannot be true, and if one cannot know something that is not true, noncognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible.

Moral relativism or ethical relativism is used to describe several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different peoples and cultures. An advocate of such ideas is often referred to as a relativist.

Moral realism is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world, some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately. This makes moral realism a non-nihilist form of ethical cognitivism with an ontological orientation, standing in opposition to all forms of moral anti-realism and moral skepticism, including ethical subjectivism, error theory, and non-cognitivism. Within moral realism, the two main subdivisions are ethical naturalism and ethical non-naturalism.

Emotivism is a meta-ethical view that claims that ethical sentences do not express propositions but emotional attitudes. Hence, it is colloquially known as the hurrah/boo theory. Influenced by the growth of analytic philosophy and logical positivism in the 20th century, the theory was stated vividly by A. J. Ayer in his 1936 book Language, Truth and Logic, but its development owes more to C. L. Stevenson.

Cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false, which noncognitivists deny. Cognitivism is so broad a thesis that it encompasses moral realism, ethical subjectivism, and error theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Is–ought problem</span> Philosophical problem articulated by David Hume

The is–ought problem, as articulated by the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume, arises when one makes claims about what ought to be that are based solely on statements about what is. Hume found that there seems to be a significant difference between positive statements and prescriptive or normative statements, and that it is not obvious how one can coherently transition from descriptive statements to prescriptive ones. Hume's law or Hume's guillotine is the thesis that an ethical or judgmental conclusion cannot be inferred from purely descriptive factual statements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Blackburn</span> English academic philosopher

Simon Walter Blackburn is an English academic philosopher known for his work in metaethics, where he defends quasi-realism, and in the philosophy of language. More recently, he has gained a large general audience from his efforts to popularise philosophy. He has appeared in multiple episodes of the documentary series Closer to Truth. During his long career, he has taught at Oxford University, Cambridge University, and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Ethical subjectivism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:

  1. Ethical sentences express propositions.
  2. Some such propositions are true.
  3. The truth or falsity of such propositions is ineliminably dependent on the attitudes of people.

Subjectivism is the doctrine that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience", instead of shared or communal, and that there is no external or objective truth.

Ethical intuitionism is a view or family of views in moral epistemology. It is foundationalism applied to moral knowledge, the thesis that some moral truths can be known non-inferentially. Such an epistemological view is by definition committed to the existence of knowledge of moral truths; therefore, ethical intuitionism implies cognitivism.

Universal prescriptivism is the meta-ethical view that claims that, rather than expressing propositions, ethical sentences function similarly to imperatives which are universalizable—whoever makes a moral judgment is committed to the same judgment in any situation where the same relevant facts pertain.

Philosophical realism – usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters – is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder. This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding. This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself. However, realism may also include various positions which instead reject metaphysical treatments of reality entirely.

In meta-ethics, expressivism is a theory about the meaning of moral language. According to expressivism, sentences that employ moral terms – for example, "It is wrong to torture an innocent human being" – are not descriptive or fact-stating; moral terms such as "wrong", "good", or "just" do not refer to real, in-the-world properties. The primary function of moral sentences, according to expressivism, is not to assert any matter of fact but rather to express an evaluative attitude toward an object of evaluation. Because the function of moral language is non-descriptive, moral sentences do not have any truth conditions. Hence, expressivists either do not allow that moral sentences to have truth value, or rely on a notion of truth that does not appeal to any descriptive truth conditions being met for moral sentences.

Cornell realism is a view in meta-ethics, associated with the work of Richard Boyd, Nicholas Sturgeon, and David Brink, who earned his Ph.D. at Cornell University. There is no recognized and official statement of Cornell realism, but several theses are associated with the view.

Quasi-realism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:

  1. Ethical sentences do not express propositions.
  2. Instead, ethical sentences project emotional attitudes as though they were real properties.

Ideal observer theory is the meta-ethical view which claims that ethical sentences express truth-apt propositions about the attitudes of a hypothetical ideal observer. In other words, ideal observer theory states that ethical judgments should be interpreted as statements about the reactions that a neutral and fully informed observer would have; "x is good" means "an ideal observer would approve of x".

The main idea [of the ideal observer theory] is that ethical terms should be defined after the pattern of the following example: "x is better than y" means "If anyone were, in respect of x and y, fully informed and vividly imaginative, impartial, in a calm frame of mind and otherwise normal, he would prefer x to y."

Humeanism refers to the philosophy of David Hume and to the tradition of thought inspired by him. Hume was an influential Scottish philosopher well known for his empirical approach, which he applied to various fields in philosophy. In the philosophy of science, he is notable for developing the regularity theory of causation, which in its strongest form states that causation is nothing but constant conjunction of certain types of events without any underlying forces responsible for this regularity of conjunction. This is closely connected to his metaphysical thesis that there are no necessary connections between distinct entities. The Humean theory of action defines actions as bodily behavior caused by mental states and processes without the need to refer to an agent responsible for this. The slogan of Hume's theory of practical reason is that "reason is...the slave of the passions". It restricts the sphere of practical reason to instrumental rationality concerning which means to employ to achieve a given end. But it denies reason a direct role regarding which ends to follow. Central to Hume's position in metaethics is the is-ought distinction. It states that is-statements, which concern facts about the natural world, do not imply ought-statements, which are moral or evaluative claims about what should be done or what has value. In philosophy of mind, Hume is well known for his development of the bundle theory of the self. It states that the self is to be understood as a bundle of mental states and not as a substance acting as the bearer of these states, as is the traditional conception. Many of these positions were initially motivated by Hume's empirical outlook. It emphasizes the need to ground one's theories in experience and faults opposing theories for failing to do so. But many philosophers within the Humean tradition have gone beyond these methodological restrictions and have drawn various metaphysical conclusions from Hume's ideas.

References

  1. ↑ Pitson, A. E. (1989). "Projectionism, Realism, and Hume's Moral Sense Theory". Hume Studies. 15 (1). Project MUSE: 61–92. doi:10.1353/hms.2011.0485. ISSN   1947-9921.
  2. ↑ Hume, David (1739). "A Treatise of Human Nature". Online Library of Liberty. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  3. ↑ Beebee, Helen (2007). "Hume on Causation: A Projectivist Interpretation". In R. Corry; H. Price (eds.). Causation, Physics and the Constitution of Reality: Russell's Republic Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 224–249.
  4. 1 2 Blackburn, Simon (1993). Essays in Quasi-realism: a defence of quasi-realism as applied to ethics. ISBN   978-0-19-508224-1.[ page needed ]
  5. ↑ Blackburn, Simon (1998). Ruling Passions. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-824785-2.
  6. ↑ Zangwill, Nick (December 1993). "Quasi-Realist Explanation". Synthese. 97 (3): 287–296. doi:10.1007/BF01064071. JSTOR   20117846. S2CID   46955963.
  7. ↑ Zangwill, Nick (1990). "Quasi-Quasi-Realism". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 50 (3): 583–594. doi:10.2307/2108166. JSTOR   2108166.
  8. ↑ "Frank Plumpton Ramsey Papers | Digital Pitt". digital.library.pitt.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-30.
  9. ↑ Galavotti, Maria Carla (2001). "Subjectivism, Objectivism and Objectivity in Bruno de Finetti's Bayesianism". In Cornfield, David; Williamson, Jon (eds.). Foundations of Bayesianism. Kluwer. pp. 161–174. ISBN   1-4020-0223-8.
  10. ↑ Logue, James (1995). Projective Probability. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-823959-8.
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