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Thinking How to Live
Philosophers have long suspected that thought and discourse about what we ought to do differ in some fundamental way from statements about what is. But the difference has proved elusive, in part because the two kinds of statement look alike. Focusing on judgments that express decisions―judgments about what is to be done, all things considered―Allan Gibbard offers a compelling argument for reconsidering, and reconfiguring, the distinctions between normative and descriptive discourse―between questions of "ought" and "is."
Gibbard considers how our actions, and our realities, emerge from the thousands of questions and decisions we form for ourselves. The result is a book that investigates the very nature of the questions we ask ourselves when we ask how we should live, and that clarifies the concept of "ought" by understanding the patterns of normative concepts involved in beliefs and decisions.
An original and elegant work of metaethics, this book brings a new clarity and rigor to the discussion of these tangled issues, and will significantly alter the long-standing debate over "objectivity" and "factuality" in ethics.
Gibbard considers how our actions, and our realities, emerge from the thousands of questions and decisions we form for ourselves. The result is a book that investigates the very nature of the questions we ask ourselves when we ask how we should live, and that clarifies the concept of "ought" by understanding the patterns of normative concepts involved in beliefs and decisions.
An original and elegant work of metaethics, this book brings a new clarity and rigor to the discussion of these tangled issues, and will significantly alter the long-standing debate over "objectivity" and "factuality" in ethics.
- GenresPhilosophy
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 27, 2010
(getting this old guy back out again-- rereading it with richard...i'm actually rereading my own review as a little warm up...upon review, i now think i might not have had a particularly sophisticated grasp on what was going here the first time around. maybe i'll update when i've slogged through it again in a couple of weeks.)
i love allan gibbard's expressivism. the arguments here are pretty sophisticated-- it's not what you'd call an introductory text-- it gets into the gritty details of noncognitivism, effectively addressing many of the perceived problems with the theory.
the basic expressivist idea is that when i make a moral claim ('eating meat is wrong', for example), i'm not stating a belief that i have about the world so much as expressing a preference of mine (so when you assert that eating meat is wrong, you're expressing your feelings of disapproval, as opposed to making some claim about wrongness as a real property in the world, which inheres in the act of meat eating). simplistic accounts of expressivism often equate expressivist moral claims as "boo!"/"yea!" claims (e.g. "eating meat: boo!"), but according to gibbard what sets our normative claims apart from mere belief, which are still, is that normative claims are plan-laden-- imbued with the intention to behave in a particular way in possible circumstances. we're consummate planners, he says, planning for what we will do in an almost endless array of circumstances ranging from the very likely to the vanishingly improbable, planning even for what we would do if we were someone else, or if we were ourselves in their circumstances. we think on these questions and consult one another on them constantly-- trying to decide what we should do, to establish the "to be done-ness" of a possible course of action. the idea is that when we identify this quality of to-be-doneness, it's a lot like acquiring a belief-- a quasi-belief, i believe he calls it.
anyway, while this is a somewhat technical book, there are real moments of beauty. i mean quasi-real moments of beauty! if you're interested in contemporary ethical theory, it's a must.
i love allan gibbard's expressivism. the arguments here are pretty sophisticated-- it's not what you'd call an introductory text-- it gets into the gritty details of noncognitivism, effectively addressing many of the perceived problems with the theory.
the basic expressivist idea is that when i make a moral claim ('eating meat is wrong', for example), i'm not stating a belief that i have about the world so much as expressing a preference of mine (so when you assert that eating meat is wrong, you're expressing your feelings of disapproval, as opposed to making some claim about wrongness as a real property in the world, which inheres in the act of meat eating). simplistic accounts of expressivism often equate expressivist moral claims as "boo!"/"yea!" claims (e.g. "eating meat: boo!"), but according to gibbard what sets our normative claims apart from mere belief, which are still, is that normative claims are plan-laden-- imbued with the intention to behave in a particular way in possible circumstances. we're consummate planners, he says, planning for what we will do in an almost endless array of circumstances ranging from the very likely to the vanishingly improbable, planning even for what we would do if we were someone else, or if we were ourselves in their circumstances. we think on these questions and consult one another on them constantly-- trying to decide what we should do, to establish the "to be done-ness" of a possible course of action. the idea is that when we identify this quality of to-be-doneness, it's a lot like acquiring a belief-- a quasi-belief, i believe he calls it.
anyway, while this is a somewhat technical book, there are real moments of beauty. i mean quasi-real moments of beauty! if you're interested in contemporary ethical theory, it's a must.
April 9, 2025
gibbard doesn't just give us a new expressive vocabulary for non-cognitivism in ethics, but does some of the work of saying sentences in it. there's something tortured about it at first, and elementary. this all shifts away to reveal a great elegance. i think the concept-property distinction is plausibly hugely fruitful, and has wide ranging implications for philosophy of science. i also think the expressivism outlined here could have wonderful implications for expressivisms elsewhere. i'm sure this has all been worked out by someone somewhere else. it's just rare to see a position so densely characterised and developed as gibbard's was here, and rarer for it to sound true
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