Heath, David William; (2003) McDowell and the challenge of moral relativism. Masters thesis (M.Phil), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

In this dissertation, I investigate whether the moral philosophy of John McDowell gives rise to a form of relativism. According to Simon Blackburn, moral relativism is engendered by the meta-ethical analogy that McDowell draws between moral properties and secondary qualities. In Chapter 1, I provide an explication of how and why McDowell makes the analogy. In Chapter 2, I lay out Blackburn's charge that the analogy gives rise to a form of relativism, show why such a relativism would be worrying, and then respond to Blackburn, both with criticisms adopted from the philosophical literature and with my own. The conclusion of this chapter is that, contra Blackburn, McDowell's secondary quality analogy does not engender a type of relativism. In Chapter 3, I extend my exposition of McDowell's moral philosophy, showing how, through his position as a moral cognitivist, he brings together the meta-ethical view that moral properties are akin to secondary qualities and first-order virtue theory. I then argue that because of the specific shape McDowell's virtue theory takes, his moral philosophy does, after all, engender a type of relativism - viz. that both moral knowledge and moral action are relative to the particular set of virtues prevalent in a culture or society at any given time. In the remainder of Chapter 3, I construct on behalf of McDowell several counter-responses to my accusation of relativism, all of which, however, I find to be problematic. In particular, I consider whether McDowell could avoid my charge by attempting to ground the virtues, à la Foot, in extra-moral facts about human nature. Notwithstanding the fact that McDowell would not approve of such an attempt, I conclude that it is flawed anyway, for the reason that it is not clear that the putatively extra-moral facts are not themselves informed by the virtues.

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