just because it is assertoric by nature. It seems, it will be argued, that if moral truth is indeterminate because evidence for or against moral facts is unavailable, the meaning of moral language must also be indeterminate.
Wright takes on Blackburn on many scores, some of which will be discussed further on, but my point will be the above: The truth value of statements within moral discourse is indeterminate. The reason for this is that there is no clear and convincing way in which we can manifest our knowledge of the existence or non-existence of the conditions which would make our moral claims (if they exist) true or false. We, quite evidently, cannot show, and this in some sense serves as a challenge for those who believe it possible, what these facts are that will either confirm or negate (verify or falsify) our moral propositions. And, any sort of proof which is forwarded will only be useful if it is congruent with our aim in making moral claims- in other words moral facts would have to be of the objective, traceable kind. A word of caution to the reader: It should be clear that the presence of moral facts would serve to make moral propositions either true or false (depending on how the propositions correspond to the facts). Proof of the absence of moral facts would render all moral claims false (those only stating simple moral propositions pertaining only to some moral state of affairs). But the inability to prove the existence and the non-existence of moral facts would make moral claims indeterminate.
More to the point, however, our inability to manifest our knowledge of what the facts would be like that would make our moral propositions true or false and also, counter the expressivist, not being able to provide evidence for the non-existence of such moral facts it would seem wrong to say that moral language is not truth apt despite the fact that it has every syntactic characteristic it requires to be used indicatively.
But a further argument is needed to show that moral language is genuinely assertoric. But more important than showing moral language to be assertoric is to make explicit the implications of this
fact; that moral language is subject to the same constraint as any other indicative language because of being used in this particular way.
If we take it that moral discourse is indeterminate in truth value and yet truth apt it seems to leave our morality awkwardly suspended. There are many theorists who find this inconclusive and open- ended view of moral language largely unsatisfactory. And, in the light of how important ethical behaviour and moral value are to people, it can be easily understood why such an open-ended view seems not to capture correctly what morality is to us as moral agents. And this, rightly so, should make theorists suspicious of accepting such an unsatisfactory view of moral truth. In theoretical terms it is often assumed that this sort of stance on moral truth is giving the debate away to Quietism (a view that there is not much to dispute or to resolve between metaphysical realism and anti-realism). Quietism assumes that an attempt to resolve the debate between whether or not we can establish conclusively that there are such things as mind-independent, moral facts (in the case of meta-ethics) is a misguided effort by metaphysicians and other types of philosophers. To some extent this view gains my sympathy, simply for the reason that it is hard to imagine what the ontology of such a thing as a mind-independent moral fact will be. And in the light that it seems hard to describe what we must be looking for it seems highly unlikely that we shall find the thing itself or be able to confirm its absence. (Refer back to the example of a "maximonis" in Chapter 4) However, some attempts, such as Wright's suggestion that we regard moral propositions as
minimally truth apt and, therefore, capable of minimal truth, have been made as a possible way in which we can maintain some of our ideas about moral truth. However, it is not obvious that
"'minimal truth" does not just result in another sort of counter-intuitive position because moral agents certainly do not think of their moral assertions as true because they are grammatically valid
and true by general norms internal to moral discourse. Moral language is used in a more objective sense and moral statements are assumed to be true in an absolute sense by the speaker. Hence, the existence of ethical dilemmas, disagreements about what is right and wrong between moral agents and antagonism between cultures about their varying value systems.
Moral language poses to be doing more than what is permitted by minimalism, and this requires some metaphysical presuppositions. It seems that Dummett is right when he says that we are unwittingly and wittingly seduced by the metaphysical picture. Maybe it is for this reason that theorists, such as Ayer and Blackburn, say more than what is minimally permitted about moral language. Ayer and Blackburn, as we have seen, maintain that moral language has no truth
conditions. Blackburn quotes and expresses assent to Ayer's view that the moral predicate (e.g. "It is wrong..." or "It is right...") does not add anything substantive to the factual content of the sentence in which it appears:
"The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content. Thus if I say to someone, "You acted wrongly in stealing that money", I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said "You stole that money" in a certain tone of voice." (1984;
167)
When a theorist claims that nothing substantive is added by the moral predicate the reason most probably is that this theorist takes it that the moral predicate cannot track anything real or does not make reference to anything real. In the particular case of Ayer and Blackburn we know them to be proponents of Expressivist theories about meaning (in moral language). This means that the moral predicate is taken to be making reference to nothing more than a desire or passion or disposition of some kind. In more "expressivist" terms: The moral predicate is nothing more than an expression of
a feeling or attitude. Such a moral predicate is not asserting truly or falsely that something is the case. If there is not factual content for the moral predicate to import to the value of a moral proposition then it must mean, if truth conditions are states of affair in reality, moral propositions have no truth conditions. This undoubtedly is a metaphysical claim and serves as the reason why expressivists cannot regard moral language as apt for truth. The fact that expressivists may regard moral language apt for truth, not because it states but because it expresses, is, once again, missing the point about use. It simply is not the case that moral agents think of themselves as expressing sentiments and predispositions when they make moral claims. If this were the case there would be no contention around what is right and wrong. Moral agents think of themselves as saying
something which is true enough that the morally relevant situation should be judged the same by any other moral agent confronted by the same set of circumstances. And this is not the same as a sentiment.
When Expressivists claim that there are no moral properties, and therefore no moral facts, they must be saying something about the way the world is. Stating that reality is devoid of anything such as mind-independent moral properties is a statement in the same class as those saying that the world has no colour, or texture or temperature. So having secured the position that Expressivism does presuppose a metaphysical state of affairs, and that it therefore does not assume a metaphysically neutral position on which to base its semantic theory, we can look at exactly what the two theories have to say about the assertoric nature of moral language.