David Lewis: Expressivism is Fictionalism
In his essay “Quasi-Realism is Fictionalism” (in Kalderon 2005), David Lewis argues that… well, that quasi-realism, Simon Blackburn’s particular flavor of moral expressivism, is in fact a version of moral fictionalism.
Lewis grants, for the sake of argument, that Blackburn’s quasi-realism succeeds on its own terms–that is, that the quasi-realist succeeds in earning back the right to say everything that the realist says (that action X is wrong, that it is true that action X is wrong, that if action X is wrong, action Y is wrong, and so on–our entire realist-sounding moral discourse). On that assumption, Lewis asks, what distinguishes quasi-realism as a distinct position from realism at all? By stipulation, there is nothing that the realist wants to say that the quasi-realist will not. So Lewis goes looking for something that the quasi-realist wants to say that the realist will not. And he claims to find such a thing–namely, a fictionalist preface.
Lewis distinguishes between fictionalist prefixes and fictionalist prefaces by listing some examples–”According to the Sherlock Holmes stories…” is a paradigmatic prefix, while “Let’s make believe the Holmes stories are true, though they aren’t,” is a paradigmatic preface. Lewis articulates the distinction this way: a prefix cancels the assertoric force of what follows it, but replaces that force with the force of another kind of assertion. The prefix “Acccording to the Sherlock Holmes stories…” cancels the assertoric force of what follows and replaces it with the force of, as it happens, another assertion–but an assertion about the content of the Holmes stories. A preface, by contrast, cancels the assertoric force of whatever follows, but doesn’t suggest what kind of force it will have. If this sounds familiar, it should. I think it is not uncharitable to take Lewis to be making the same distinction I laid out (via Joyce) in the previous post, between talking about a story and telling it–in Selim Berker’s vocabulary, between tacit operator fictionalism and force modifier fictionalism. Lewisian prefixes are ways of talking about the contents of a story. Lewisian prefaces are introductions to telling one.*
In any case, Lewis thinks that Blackburn’s endorsement of projectivism–his first step in dealing with moral nihilism, which is to say that rather than being sensitive to moral properties in the world, we project our moral attitudes onto the world–serves as a fictionalist preface, a “Once upon a time…” for the quasi-realist reconstruction of moral discourse that follows. Projectivism is the thing that quasi-realists will say and that realists will not. His very quick formal argument is as follows:
- Blackburn doesn’t just happen to earn the right to echo everything that the moral realist says–it is in fact one of his stated goals.
- That means he either wants to be, or to pretend to be, a realist.
- Blackburn also says his goal is to avoid the errors of realism.
- That means he does not want to be a realist.
- So Blackburn wants to pretend to be a realist.
On Lewis’ view, Blackburn’s articulation of projectivism–that is, his initial inversion of the basic tenets of moral realism, related to the third point above–is what robs otherwise straightforward moral claims of their assertoric force and turns them into quasi-assertions.
Later–perhaps tomorrow morning–I’ll go through Blackburn’s response, and also C.S. Jenkins’ refereeing of the dispute. But for now I just want to clarify that while Lewis has singled out Blackburn’s brand of expressivism for attention, in principle his argument should apply to any expressivist project, as long as the expressivist (1) is motivated by a desire to avoid realism’s errors and (2) attempts to earn back the right to use all of our everyday moral discourse. For tomorrow–who’s right? And can you run the argument the other way–that is, is fictionalism reducible to expressivism?
* I think it’s possible that Lewis is ignoring a point that Joyce makes–Joyce explicitly says that one shouldn’t interpret non-cognitivists (read: expressivists) to be arguing that moral sentences include a tacit “Let’s pretend that…” clause (2005, p. 296). I’m not convinced that this applies to Lewisian prefaces, but it might. I’ll take this up later.
