For Kyle Dickey, Word count: 955

Universality in Expressivism

In this essay I will attempt to outline an Expressivist response as to why deploying

chemical weaponry against civilians is universally bad. In a broader sense, I am trying to show

that anti-realist theories, namely Expressivism, have the capacity to generate universal moral

claims.

In order to elucidate what the anti-realist response to deployment of chemical weaponry

on children is, one must first understand the Realist response. Moral Realism is a theory that is

based on the following two theses: morality is objective, and some of the moral beliefs that

people hold are true. Since some of the claims are truth evaluable, Realists contend that moral

claims contain moral properties. These properties determine what is right from wrong. Realists

contend that these properties are universal, meaning that they exist out in the universe like other

natural properties. Additionally, these properties are normative, meaning that the property

compels us to act a certain way. For example, in the case of deployment of chemical weaponry, a

Moral Realist only needs to state that there is a moral property which states that using chemical

weaponry against your own people is wrong.

In contrast to Realists, Anti-Realists do not believe in universal moral properties. Instead,

they believe that moral properties and judgments originate from the human psyche. This leaves

Anti-Realists with an interesting conundrum, as they have to explain the apparent universality of

many moral concepts. For example, the vast majority of people agree that murder is categorically

bad, but under the basic Anti-Realist framework, it’s not easy to back up that claim.

Expressivism is the version of Anti-Realism that I will use in order to exhibit the

capability of Anti-Realism to generate a universal claim. However, to do so, I first need to

explain the theses of Expressivism. Expressivism claims that moral claims, instead of being

statements of fact, are simply expressions of one’s mental state. More specifically, according to

Gibbard, moral claims are statements of one’s plan. Gibbard’s definition of the word “plan” is

different from the colloquial definition that most people use. Gibbard defines planning as

thinking ahead of hypotheticals and devising our response to them, and then, when we are faced

with the situation we have previously thought of, we take the action we have thought of for the

situation. In the case of moral judgements, we think of moral situations, such as whether or not

murder is moral, and the vast majority of people reach the conclusion that one ought not murder.

Gibbard believes that we have acquired the ability to constantly make plans and prepare for

contingencies through evolution. We are constantly devising responses to situations we might

run into, both consciously and subconsciously. This includes most basic moral dilemmas, such as

murder and inflicting pain on others.

The question still remains, how does the Expressivist view make a universal moral claim?

The Expressivist idea for a universal moral claim is rooted in the Gibbard’s concept of the plan.

When we make moral plans, such as one ought not use chemical weaponry on your own citizens,

you are making that plan not only from your own circumstance, but you are assuming it for the

circumstances of all moral agents. You are asserting that even if you were in Bashar al-Assad’s

shoes, you would not deploy chemical weaponry on your own citizens.

This interpretation, like many other Anti-Realist theories, is vulnerable to disagreement.

What are you supposed to do if somebody disagrees with your moral claim? Gibbard’s response

is simple, not everybody who disagrees with you is correct. Gibbard illustrates this with the

example of Brandt’s Hopi. Gibbard’s teacher, Brandt, while on an expedition to ascertain the

moral beliefs of different cultures, encountered a tribe of Hopi. This tribe played a game called
chicken pull. The game consisted of burying a chicken up to its neck in the ground, and then

getting on a horse and galloping past the chicken, while simultaneously pulling the chicken out

of the ground. This inevitably results in death or extreme pain for the chicken. When making

plans, if one takes the pain of the chicken into account, while also accounting for everybody’s

circumstances, one would arrive at the plan that one ought not play chicken pull. Even when

accounting for the Hopi’s culture of playing chicken pull, if one takes the pain of the chicken

into account, in all cases one ought not play chicken pull. However, the Hopi argument for

playing chicken pull is coherent, meaning that the argument is logically sound, and none of the

premises contradict one another. They simply do not take the pain of the chicken into account,

and therefore arrive at the plan that it is permissible to play chicken pull. Since both arguments

are coherent, how are we to judge right and wrong between them?

Gibbard counters this with the example of Wilberforce, a man who had a coherent

argument for why dinosaurs don’t exist. Despite the argument being coherent, dinosaurs

obviously did exist, so the conclusion that is drawn from this is that coherent arguments are not

grounded in fact. This means that fundamental coherent disagreement should not undermine

normative matters, in this case plans.

The path to produce a universal moral claim using Expressivism is as follows:

(1) There are no moral properties.

(2) Normative statements, including moral statements, are expressions of states of

mind.

(3) These states of mind are defined as plans, which are caused by humans planning

for contingencies, a property of humans that was prompted by evolution.

(4) Plans can become universal when one makes plans accounting for the

circumstances of all moral agents.

(5) Universal plans are still vulnerable to disagreement

(6) However, fundamental coherent disagreement is detached from fact, making it so

it does not undermine normative/moral expressions.