Seguridad

Ehrenberg challenges Dworkin‟s assertion that discussions of the identities of metaphysical properties are happening at the 1st order. As we saw above, Ehrenberg delivers this challenge with an example of two utilitarians who hold the same 1st order moral views. However, the first utilitarian believes that goodness is the same property as the maximizing of happiness. The second utilitarian thinks goodness is the same property as maximizing

happiness but this is because moral sensibility is a result of an evolutionary process that functionally favours valuing certain actions over others. The first utilitarian does not hold the view that the second utilitarian does about why utilitarianism is true. Ehrenberg assumes that

318 Ibid.

319 Ibid.

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this disagreement is a 2nd order disagreement that leaves all the 1st order moral views of both utilitarians unchanged. Hence, it is an archimedean disagreement that is morally neutral.

The difficulty with this argument is it does not establish what it is supposed to establish. This is because the example Ehrenberg uses does seem like a 2nd order discussion, on the one hand. On the other hand, it seems like it could be read as a morally non-neutral

disagreement as well. This is because the second utilitarian‟s view can be read as a moral

claim. To say that utilitarianism is true because moral sensibility is a result of an evolutionary process that favors valuing certain actions over others is to say that an evolutionary process can determine what is moral. If an evolutionary process can determine what is moral, this suggests that the evolutionary process is capable of justifying moral claims. If this is the case, claims that explain moral truths in terms of an evolutionary process, seem to be explaining those moral truths as being morally justified because of the evolutionary process. Of course, there is the alternative reading of the claim of the second utilitarian that is completely non-

moral. Although Ehrenberg finds the alternative reading more plausible, he doesn‟t

demonstrate to the reader that the first reading is implausible.

This seems to be either a product of Ehrenberg‟s failure to notice the moral

interpretation of the beliefs of the 2ndutilitarian or Ehrenberg‟s rejection of the moral interpretation. If Ehrenberg has failed to notice the moral interpretation, he needs to reconstruct this particular argument against Dworkin to deal with it. If Ehrenberg rejects the moral interpretation because he finds it implausible, he needs to explain why. Ehrenberg does neither. Also, there is a difficulty with a non-moral interpretation of the views of the second utilitarian that Ehrenberg has not addressed. This difficulty is the views of the second utilitarian involve explaining why a 1st order normative ethical theory is true by making reference to evolutionary processes. If Ehrenberg interprets the evolutionary processes as not being a moral justification of utilitarianism, then he is interpreting the evolutionary processes as just being a non-moral explanation of the truth of utilitarianism. To the extent that the evolutionary process does any justification of the truth of utilitarianism, it will somehow be non-moral justification.

The problem with this view is it presupposes the normal characterisation of the 1st and 2nd order distinction. It presupposes that one can validate a set of 1st order moral claims

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from 2nd order moral claims that are morally neutral. This is the very possibility that

Dworkin‟s views are challenging. Dworkin‟s whole point is that 2nd _{order moral claims which} can validate or undermine 1st order moral claims are implausible 2ndorder claims. Ehrenberg‟s example only shows that one may interpret a utilitarian as making a 2nd order claim that validates a set of 1st order moral claims. It does not show that this assertion by the utilitarian is plausible. This is what Ehrenberg would have to show in order to use this argument as a challenge to Dworkin. All Ehrenberg does is invoke a hypothetical example of two

disagreeing utilitarians which presupposes the normal characterisation of the 1st and 2nd order

distinction. This begs the question against Dworkin because Dworkin‟s views concerning

what constitute an implausible 2nd order claim attempt to challenge the normal

characterization of the 1st and 2nd order distinction. Namely, they attempt to challenge the aspect of that normal characterization which implies that plausible 2nd order claims can validate or undermine a set of 1st order moral claims.

Ehrenberg makes a different set of mistakes in his attempt to defend McDowell‟s secondary quality theories from Dworkin‟s attack. Ehrenberg claims that on secondary quality

theory, the claim that to experience something as being wrong can count as a case of being presented with a property that is there independently of the experience.320 For Ehrenberg, a secondary property is just the ability of an object to give rise to a reaction that may never take place. Hence, for Ehrenberg, a secondary quality theory need not involve counterfactual claims. Are these sufficient conditions of a morally neutral secondary quality theory? It seems not. This is because any meta-ethical theory that attempts to give an identity between the experience of something being wrong and being presented with a property that is there independently of the experience of the property is morally non-neutral. It is morally non- neutral because it implies moral claims. Namely, it implies that any meta-ethical theory that is incompatible with the secondary quality theory is giving an incorrect characterization of wrongness. The claim that a theory is giving an incorrect characterization of wrongness is a moral claim because it is implicitly giving necessary conditions of a correct characterization of wrongness. In other words, the claim is asserting that in order to be a genuine instance of wrongness, the experience of wrongness has to coincide with being presented with a property

320

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that is there independently of the experience of the property. Any experience of wrongness that does not coincide with being presented with a property that is there independently of the experience of the property is not a genuine instance of wrongness. The act of giving necessary conditions of a correct characterization of wrongness is a moral act because it implies that a set of purportedly wrong claims that fail to satisfy the necessary conditions are not actually wrong. If Ehrenberg wants to show that despite these entailments, his version of secondary quality is somehow morally neutral, the burden of proof is on him to provide supplementary arguments. He fails to do this.

Ehrenberg makes a similar blunder in his attempt to show that Dworkin has failed to demonstrate that a debate about the causal explanation of moral beliefs can be a morally neutral one. As we recall, Dworkin claims that causal explanations of moral claims must either be understood as 1st order moral claims or as absurd 2nd order moral claims. For Dworkin, this counts against them being understood as 2nd order moral claims. Ehrenberg

tries to show here that we can interpret a utilitarian as holding one of Dworkin‟s absurd 2nd order claims (the „moral field thesis‟) for reasons that are theoretical rather than moral.

Ehrenberg believes that the burden of proof is on Dworkin here to show that the above

scenario is impossible. Yet Ehrenberg‟s own example fails to show what it is supposed to

show: that the agent who holds the moral field thesis for theoretical reasons is not engaged in a moral act. Ehrenberg makes no attempt to deal with the issue of whether the moral field thesis gives necessary conditions of morality that wind up implying moral claims. Nor does he deal with the issue that the moral field thesis may be a 2nd order view about how to morally evaluate moral claims.

Ehrenberg fails to adequately defend his attacks on Dworkin‟s treatment of quasi-

realism. As we recall, Dworkin criticizes quasi-realists like Blackburn who attempt to make

mind independence claims such as “Genocide would be wrong even if no one thought so”

because they simultaneously deny the existence of mind independent moral facts. Ehrenberg defends the quasi-realists here by insisting that the denial of mind independent moral facts is

happening at the 2nd order level of theory whereas the “Genocide is wrong even if no one ever thought so” claim is happening at the 1st order level of theory. This defence begs the