Mill's Metaethical Non-cognitivism

Abstract

In section I, I lay out key components of my favoured non-cognitivist interpretation of Mill's metaethics. In section II, I respond to several objections to this style of interpretation posed by Christopher Macleod. In section III, I respond to David Brink's treatment of the well-known ‘competent judges’ passage in Mill's Utilitarianism. I argue that important difficulties face both Brink's evidential interpretation and the rival constitutive interpretation that he proposes but rejects. I opt for a third interpretative option that I call the psychological interpretation. This interpretation makes sense of otherwise difficult aspects of chapter IV of Utilitarianism. In section IV, I offer some reasons for rejecting Nicholas Drake's claim that Mill is ultimately best characterized as a Humean constructivist. If we accept Drake's suggestion that Mill's non-cognitivism is compatible with his being a constructivist, I argue, we should view Mill as putting forward a distinctively Millian form of constructivism rather than a Humean one.