Otago Philosophy - Charles Pigden

After graduating from Kings College, Cambridge in 1979, Charles Pigden spent five years studying in Australia before first coming to Otago as a postdoctoral fellow in 1986. After a brief stint teaching at Massey, he returned to Otago as a lecturer in 1988. Charles has published on a wide range of subjects from the analytic/synthetic distinction through conspiracy theories to the existence (or otherwise) of abstract objects. He is (as they say) a 'Russell scholar' having edited Russell on Ethics (1999) (which won the Bertrand Russell Society book Award for 2000) and contributed the chapter on ethics to the Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell. However, his chief interest is in ethics, particularly meta-ethics. He is a defender of the error-theory with a special interest in Hume and the Is/Ought Question.

Charles Pigden organised a successful conference on Hume, Motivation, 'Is' and 'Ought' held at Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand from 19-24 January 2003. He is editing two books Hume 'Is' and 'Ought' and Hume, Motivation and Virtue based upon this conference.

Teaching

PHIL 227 Moral Philosophy

PHIL 327 Moral Philosophy

PHIL 406 Why be Moral?
PHIL 458 ST: Hume and the Good Life

Supervision Interests

Research

Hume's famous No-Ought-From-Is passage is one of the most talked-about single paragraphs in the entire history of philosophy and continues to be the focus for metaethical debate right down to the present day. Some think it expresses a profound truth; some think it is true but not profound; and some think that it cannot be profound because it is not true. Like Thomas Reid, I am a member of the true-but-not-profound party, though, in my view, its non-profundity is itself profound in the sense that it is a quite important point that nothing of any meta-ethical consequence follows from [my version of] No-Ought-From-Is. (When appropriately modified, No-Ought-From-Is is simply an instance of the conservativeness of logic, the thesis that in a valid deductive argument, you cannot get out what you have not put in; hence it provides no support whatsoever for non-cognitivism or even non-naturalism.)

My opponents include Arthur Prior, who argued in a famous paper that No-Ought-From-Is is not profound because not true, and Gerhard Schurz, who disputes my presupposition that there is no special logic of the moral concepts but defends a different and potentially more profound version of No-Ought-From-Is. The forthcoming Hume 'Is' and 'Ought' addresses these issues, advancing the debate between Schurz and myself, and includes two completely new proofs of No-Ought-From-Is, one by Greg Restall and Gillian Russell and the other by Ed Mares. Research on these issues (including a debate between Annette Baier and myself about the meaning of 'deduction' in eighteenth Century English) has led to further work on early modern logical theory, specifically the lecture notes of Colin Drummond, who was Hume's logic professor at Edinburgh.

Hume's 'Motivation Argument' is, if anything, even more discussed than No-Ought-From-Is. I contend that although an argument for non-cognitivism can be extracted from Hume's text, this is not the argument that Hume intended. What he was actually arguing for was the thesis that moral truths are not arrived at by reasoning but are the products of a moral sense. However both the argument that can be extracted from his text and the argument he intended are abject failures. If I am right about this, and right about No-Ought-From-Is, this rather leaves non-cognitivism in the lurch. However, these are contentious matters and are discussed at length by myself and others in the forthcoming Hume, Motivation and Virtue.

My work on Russell is dedicated to the proposition that Russell was an important ethical thinker, a major influence on Moore and a pioneer of both emotivism and the error-theory. Future work will emphasise his influence on Moore.

My long-term project is to write a defense of the error-theory (The Reluctant Nihilist) and a companion volume (Living the Noble Lie ) arguing that morality is a necessary illusion. To that end I hope to explore the theme of amoralism in literature, touching on Dostoevsky, Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the figure of Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV plays.

Publications include

Pigden, C.R. (2008: forthcoming) ‘A Niggle at Nagel’ in Sandis, Constantine ed., New Essays on the Explanation of Action, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pigden, C.R. (2007) 'Russell's Moral Philosophy', Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (includes three annexes)

Pigden, C.R. ‘Nihilism, Nietzsche and the Doppelganger Problem’, special Mackie issue of Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 10:5, pp. 441-456

Pigden, C.R. ‘Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom’, Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology, 4:2, pp. 219-232

Pigden, C.R. (2007) 'Desiring to Desire: Russell, Lewis and G.E. Moore', in Susanna Nuccatelli and Gary Seay eds, Themes from G. E. Moore: New Essays in Epistemology and Ethics, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 244-269.

Pigden, C.R. (2007) 'Hume, Motivation and "the Moral Problem"' in New Essays on David Hume, edited by Emilio Mazza and Emanuele Ronchetti, Milano: Franco Angeli, 2007 [volume series: "Filosofia e scienza nell'età moderna" - ISBN number 978-88-464-8336-2], pp. 199-221.

Pigden, C.R. (2006) 'Popper Revisited or What is Wrong With Conspiracy Theories?' ch. 3 of Coady, David ed. Conspiracy Theories: the Philosophical Debate, London: Ashgate, 2006, pp. 17-47. Slightly revised reprint of Pigden, C.R., 'Popper Revisited or What is Wrong With Conspiracy Theories?' The Philosophy of the Social Sciences, vol. 25, no. 1. pp. 3-34. (1995).

Pigden, C.R. (2006) 'Complots of Mischief' ch. 12 of Coady, David ed. Conspiracy Theories: the Philosophical Debate, London, Ashgate, pp. 147-173.

Pigden, C.R. and Cheyne, C. (2006) 'Negative Truths from Positive Facts', special David Armstrong edition of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 84:2, pp. 249-65.

Pigden, C.R. (August 2003) 'Owed to Uncle Joe' (a Review of Martin Amis's Koba the Dread ) in The New Zealand Political Review, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 43-45.

Pigden, C.R. (2003) 'Bertrand Russell: Moral Philosopher or Unphilosophical Moralist?' in Griffin, N. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Russell, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 475-506.

Pigden, C.R. and Cheyne, C. (1996) 'Pythagorean Powers or A Challenge to Platonism', Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 74, pp. 639-645.

Pigden, C.R. (1991) 'Naturalism' in P. Singer (ed.) A Companion to Ethics, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 421-431.

Pigden, C.R. (1990) 'Geach on "Good"'* Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 40, No. 159, pp. 129-154.

Pigden, C.R. (1988) 'Anscombe on "Ought"'*, Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 20-41.

In Preparation (not to be cited or quoted without permission)

* This is an electronic version of an article published in The Philosophical Quarterly. Complete citation information for the final version of the paper, as published in the print edition of The Philosophical Quarterly, is available on the Blackwell Synergy online delivery service, accessible via the journal's website or at the Blackwell website.

Scritti Politici

Pigden, Charles, 'One Fix Doesn't Fix all - but it Helps', Otago Daily Times, 2/2/07, p.17.

Pigden, Charles, 'Mass Extinctions But the Hills Will Still Look Nice' Otago Daily Times, 11/12/06.

Pigden, Charles ,'Falsehood and Folly of Conspiracy', Otago Daily Times, 24/7/06, p.15.

Pigden, Charles, 'Better an Honest Bigot than a Pedlar of Falsehoods', Otago Daily Times, 12/7/04, p.14

Pigden, Charles, 'Open Letter to Mr Anderton' Otago Daily Times, 5/4/02

Pigden, Charles, 'Gedda Life!' in The New Zealand Political Review, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 24-34. (September/October)

Pigden, Charles, 'Right Back at the Backgrounder' [Taxation Policy] October 1999

Charles Pigden

Teaching

Supervision Interests

Research

Publications include

In Preparation (not to be cited or quoted without permission)

Scritti Politici