26 ‘onisrn wntcire involve anything worthy ofertcim, But while the ant-realist will have fo accept that such diflerences need involve nothing worth regarding as come shortcoming = as deficiency in representation, stanly conceived ~ the ortinary view wil remain avaiable that shortcoming may nevertheless often be involved, albeit an inedcibly moral shortcoming, a type of filing which can be Appreciated only fom a commited moral pint of view. Tn general~T guess the pin is obvious enough — the immediate price of antirealism about morals Is mesely that the gravity of {oral judgement wil ack an external sane. When ones asked, "Wy bother to try fo arrive at careect moral opinion? the only avalable answer wil Be: becnuse such an opinion informs ber onduct~ etter hat foes moral point o view. The value of ‘moral truth wil thay be an insrumental, moral value. Ty i ommon to think thet there ae, by eohtast, tine general ‘mies associated with pure dicovery, understanding and know: Iedge ofthe real word. Propesy to charactesiae snd 1 snerstand such values seems to me tobe avery dificl task. Tn any cae, for the moral ant-realist, that kind of value cannot attach to mora truth, Due T think i€/has seemed important that it should only because of the tendency of philosophers to uppose that thee nothing for truth tobe that i ot astocated with vale of tha sort, “What more could a senible moral realist wan” What those whove intuitive inclination fe to moral realism realy wants 1 Suggest, is not truth ay representation alam a8 propetty Understood ~ but a certain nd of objectivity im moral appraisal ideally, predsely that a tendency towards convergence in the conception of what is morally important and how mach importance ithas be indeed insinsic to moral thinking itself How much, and ‘what kinds of moral appraisal may indeed contain the seed of sack convergence. Seems tome a great ~ perhaps the greatest ~ Unresolved question in moral philosophy. My argument has been thatthe question has nothing. fo do with moral realism, but asec ‘within the anteealst camp. Uist of St Andre Ste Andes KYIG-9AL ‘Scolend {2M i a 8 ntl Puhr Ed 85,108 Cay Rand, Ord OX¢ JF, OR ‘TRUTH IN ETHICS Bernard Williams {shall start with two thoughts which prima facie present a Aliiclty right from the beginning. The Gest that truth in ethics sn important subject. The second is that, ona plausible view ofthe matter, truth in ethic i not a very important subject. ‘The reason for these two considerations coming together is thi ‘Truth in ethics might seem an important subject because it bears very closely on certain questions such as objectivity, the possibility of ethical knowledge, and hence ~ and thie I take’ to be a particulary significant question inthis area ~ the nature of ethical ‘thority, ifthere is such a thing: thats why one person’ views on ethical topics can be worth more than another's. So if truth in fries is related to such questions, truth Jn ethics should be an important subject, However, on «plausible view of the matter, truth in ethics is not in iteffsuch an importane question, beeause the question of ruth in this is not itself any of those questions about object, the possibility ofechical knowledge, and so forth, T think that inthis point T agree electvely wth’ Crispin Wright, ‘his may be (indeed T think itis) contrary t some things T wrote quite a long time ago, particularly perhaps in ‘Consistency. and Realism’! but T certainly don’t wish to go back over thove ald ‘witngs. Now, at leat, I should ike ta says and here Tamm broadly agreeing with Wright. that truth iff in't much, As T think Wright has shown, the conclsion that tuth in itself isn't much follows from what I take to be an undeniable starting point, namely the soundness of Tarsk’s equivalence, If we ean. start fom anything inthe question of truth, we eon start from the ides tha is true jas in cate chat p. Exactly how Tarski’ equivalence is to be formulated, for instance with regard to relatvisation to 4 language or otherwie It a further question, and indeed it is 3 question to whieh 1 shall return later. What is not undeniable is any given philosophical interpretation of what Tarski's equivalence means, For instance, 5 Rep in my Pri fie Sy (Cambridge: Care Use P17. SSF a Obeany (ames, Ma ane Sey228 EREVARD WILLIAMS Popper held that Tarski’ equivsnce isthe best expresion of che Coneopondence theory of tith. Equally, ie hag been eld that Tamils equivalence isthe best exprettion of the redundancy theory of ruth, Becntse it diploy the ea that truth is a Findomentally diaquotations! notion ‘Bat Tarski equivalence docs not express aay such theory, and te fact that ies Been taken by: authoritative and. competent Smmentators to express both the cowrespondence theory and the Sedundancy theory scema itself good evidence that it docs not Expres any such theory. In particular, Tark's equivalence does Sot expres the redundancy theory. Ifyou have Tars's equivalence nd no more, that i ot elven tthe following theory rath ‘rpained by Tarsks equivalence and no more ‘However, we can learn something fom the rations of Tarsit euivalence tothe redundancy theory, in fvour of what (agai lke Wight) Thal al winialim with teapect to tath ‘The mere ft than account of trath as to accommodate Tara's equivalence burly creates a strong prestmption (for istance) that truth is not ‘is certainly 4 necessary condiion of qualifying for tra preicae that ethical statements are watements: they are involved In speech cts of the anerive king, they. permit embedding and Narioun other Kinds o syntactic teaniplation which are asrolated With the sorts of things that are statements, assertions, bearers of Truth value, These syotacic phenomena, as we might call them, five wo be honoured in any ateoune of eal atements, But how heavy s urd docs the fact tha these syntactic phenomena have fo behonoured nan nceount of ethical Haters impose on a? ‘The answer depends on whet our expectations ae of semantic the ‘For instance, Hare made a definite semantic claim, namely that indicate and apparently asterrie moral statements were in fact tives imperatives? Ofcourse that dim involved an immediate Semantic problem of ow uch an analysis could Be recone the surfate phenomena, and this gave Tie to the machinery of Phrasics, news, tropics, and so forth, A mote resent example [fsomeane who thinks that thre is a heavy ome to decharge here ft Alan Gibbard Gibbard wishes to reconcile an expressive view of chil statements with te syntactic phenomena, and in order to 1 Sx, Laue Mn (Or Crnden Pr {Chto fea (xn Cheon Pe 850 (© et La ‘TRUTH IN erie 229 4o this, he has produoed a semantic theory tha is fairly elaborate ‘model theoretic account of norms, (On the other hand, if you look at Simon Blackburn's ‘quasi- realism’? you see a diferent picture: ie represents, T think, different expectation of semantic theory. As I. understand Blackburn's view, he doesn’ require any more work oti pi ‘That is to say, he doesn’t fel it necessary to do the kind of thing that Gibbard’ does in giving modeltheoretic or any similar semantics to reconcile the syntactic phenomena with an expressive view. The statements in question, on Blackburn's view, simply Dehave like statements, He supplements this with a metaphysiel ‘oF epistemological account, which he thinks explains why, the statements illsorly in his view, bear an appearance of realism, ‘Vm not going to pursue that ieue, Its not one on which T have any iteresting view. T just draw attention to the fact that its a disputed question how big a weight has to be picked up simply in virtue of reconciling some general metaethical view about the ‘staus of ethical beliefs with the surface syntactic phenomena that allow ethical statements tobe statements ‘Ti going to assume minimalism inthe fllowing form, There are toro set of what might be ealled sac face with regard to ethical siscourse. First, it well regimented syntactically in the mode of indicative assertion {i allows embedding, conditional, and sl the sorts of things we are familiar within that department), Second, lerances are assessed under the tide of truth for their appropriate: ‘ess, acceptability, or whatever. (My reference to "appropratencst™ an cepa hee are not mean tobe any quan gst We may also accept the fact —less on the surface ~ that such assessments of ethical statements do not directly take the content of the ethical asserions to be determined by the speaker's poyeho- logical states, They are not taken to be truths in the mode of autobiographical subjeciviem (except of course in very specie! ‘eases where an ethical statement is ofthat character ~some ethic Statements, afterall, re of an autobiographical character). take minimalism to say that the surface facts just mentioned do not by themselves determine the answer to substantive questions about realism, objecivism, cognitivism, or more generally the staous of ethical statements, nor do they determine anything about en et ed Onset Pro, 89 uy Qs ai (© ae int230 BERNARD WHLAIAM the authority, i there is such a thing, of some ethical speakers as ns others To answer those questions, you have to go beyend the surface facts and not jut note the practices of acertio, devil, appropriate syneactcregimentation and ao on, but ack or the poi the practices of assertion, denial, argument, inquiry and so s,m the eaurse of which these surface fete are dgplayed. The sub seantve question in ethics about realism, objcevim,cogntsm, tnd soon are querons no jut about he cstence ofthe sree facts, nor indeed about the adequacy of the surincefacs to support the application ofthe word "true. The question i about the point inthe ethical cae of practices such as assertion, dena and truth At thi pine, we do encounter concepts of the cognitive kind Te point here isnot that truth in ete, any more than iis anywhere ls, it itaelf a cognitive concept. Te ist Rather the Gueson ofhow much ath i ethics comes to, what does How mach we should care about it ean only be tacssed i terms ot concepts suchas knowledge. Its this emphasis thet lead no ‘questions about she ognive "You might say, and T think this is quite a helpful way of viewing the matter, that suck questions aboss the sats of eh (questions tout realism, objecvism,cogntvism snd so on) concern nt ‘much whether the discourse of ethics can support ascipions of truth bot rater what the vue of rath sforeiics Teen the avet ot the value of rth tae these ieee come out ‘This miss poi more general than one confined to eis, If vwe consider the He ofthe value of rath and Tn no mapping that this is one homogeneous thing! there are quite = numer of things that ate the values of truth = a natural Sasmpton that what yeu have to-do fist isto determine what tative for some Fegion of iseorse nd then youl bene postion to ask about the ‘ale of tt in elation to that region of lecourse. However what Ta ike co suggests, roughly speaking, that we sould proce the other way round: sthat we should dis hold on to minimalist fccount of rth everywhere and then the queson ofthe valu of teuth in given area will help eto se witat more we should say about trath in that aren ‘When Tteter the value of quth, {don’t mean the value offs being trae: Justin virtue of Tarsk's equivalence, the vaoe’ot Pe being tuts typically the value of pit there ie sueh thing For Inance, contrary fo the evidences and contrary to whet vergbnly else says this lady believes tht er child survived the rash, he (© sat an as ‘reuTH iv eres a1 in fae sight e's rue her ton survive the crash, andi is «good {hing that her belies te: But why i's a good thing that he ce is re i simply that i a god thing that ton sevived The not the valu of rth, but the vel of survival Bt there are other connections ~ and thi where the vale of truth comes in where the vlc aa belch being tenet pat tater ofthe value op where p expresses that bee The wakes ot trith in general is consted by our rlaons to such teks fo various such relations. Te involves ch things athe valoe of tng to know the wath of continuing to look forthe ten, of ssering the truth because is true, ef taking spe hott Gorcg oneself nto thinking that pis fle when iti mace we, the value af ideniying people whose information onthe querton whether is Hey tobe true information, and soon. And f can vole sch imate with which we're all fan, for instance, inthe ie ot ibe, whether truth i a defence; whether for ines, were that "would otherwise be negatively valued should seche some Poitive value because those teranees were tue. Ill thee onnectons, it sems to me, we ean farther cur understanding of ‘outh beyond the minimalist universal account of rat iy understanding the vals of trath end; deed, wuthinay ‘The way in which the term “uth hay turned po all these formulation, formrlatonsTasocate with what I brea eal the value of rath, i unfavourable to the redundancy they fe that we want to use “uth” in such fnterlcking ways intl aout the vale of tat lustates one ofthe dimensions ia whi our eanept of trath has to go beyond what is ofered by te redundancy theory. Certainly tbe limited teatment thatthe fae af truth has received {fom the redundancy theory has ot bess Pariculaly suspicious Horwich's book, the bert known recent exposition of the redundancy theory, provides ‘an example Tp fe ere © be Passage about the value of truth, Horwich ays that when ee stachesavalug to cuth, what ene wants to belleve pian oly if 9? He saya if and only i, soe not only te Lseh a oy bie to be tue, uc that ith wo beieve al tuts. The desiree accuracy is condated withthe desve for omiseience "Tait ia mistake, but it now am unmotivated ip on Horwicls part Horwich has grasped the point that in having’ an iret th © et etl