NATURALISTIC FALLACY AND THE QUESTION OF OBJECTIVITY
BY
DR. Z. B. OGUNDARE,
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITY OF ADO-EKITI, NIGERIA
In partnership with
London Academy for Higher Education.

Naturalistic Fallacy and The Question of Objectivity
The Problem:
G.E. Moore has argued that ethical terms are indefinable since the meaning of ethical concepts cannot be given in non-ethical terms. Thus, any attempt to restate ethical sentences by normative concepts like ‘good’ ‘right’ would lead to naturalistic fallacy (Moore, 1976, PP.110-25 FF). Interestingly, ‘good’ or ‘right’ to the naturalists are ethical properties of things in the external (natural) world.
Moore’s account of Naturalistic fallacy requires for its defence, the acceptance of (at least) the following theses:

(1) the principle of indeterminacy of definition of ethical terms

(2) the instructability of reference, and

(3) ontological relativity.
Furthermore, Moore’s account relies upon some assumption that (1) and (2) provide warrants for (3); (2) is presumed to be a consequence of (1). To make this clearer Moore’s view is that:

(i) if the principle of indeterminacy of definition of ethical terms is true, then reference is instructable.

(ii) If reference is instructable, then ontological relativity is true. So we may conclude that

(iii) If the principle of indeterminancy of definition of ethical terms is true, then ontological relativity is true.

But if ontological relativity is true, we must give up the idea that ethical words reflect, copy a non-linguistic reality; we must it seems, think differently about reference; reference is not a relation between ethical terms and a language independent world; what ethical words refer to is determined by the translation manual I started with. Ontological relativism thus forces the rejection of realism as an account of definition and reference. It seems to me, however that ontological relativity is not firmly grounded in Moore’s account; and, for objective reasons, we should be realistic about definition of ethical terms.

In this paper, I shall attempt to show that the viability of Moore’s naturalistic fallacy can be assessed in objective terms and that its appeal is not as forceful as it seems. The first part reveals that the instructability of reference follows from the principle of indeterminacy and subsequently suggest that (ii) above is false. I mean that ontological relativity does not follow from instructability of reference. Some of what I shall say will suggest not only that the thesis of the indeterminacy of definition of ethical terms is suspect but also that indeterminacy of definition of ethical terms is not a sound basis for ontological relativity.

It can thus be argued that ontological relativity may be defended on some ground other than indeterminacy of definition. Possibly, it may be argued that ontological relativity is true because linguistic relativity is true. I shall examine such a view in the second part of this paper.

In the third part where I shall briefly present a Putnaminan realist account of reference, I shall suggest how ontological relativity is not as compelling as Moore’s account of the indefinability thesis suggests. To avoid a possible misunderstanding: my purpose is not to argue that the realist account of reference is right because ontological relativism is, in some clear way, defective. From the stand-point of logic alone, realism and ontological relativity may be both wrong, even if one of them is right. Throughout, I shall be assuming that to undermine the defensibility of ontological relativity and to argue as did Moore against the definability of ethical terms, we need good objections against both ontological relativity and the definability of ethical terms on one hand and good arguments for realism on the other.

I
Ethical Definism, Ontological Relativity, Indeterminacy and The Instructability of Reference.
Ethical naturalism combines cognitivism with moral reductionism – the idea that ethical terms, namely, ‘good’, ‘right’, ‘justice’ and other ethical sentences “can be reduced to non-ethical sentences”. This theory holds that the meaning of ethical statements can be expressed without using ethical terms such as ‘good’ and ‘right’. Thus ethical terms or statements become useful abbreviation for claims about what are ultimately non-ethical facts about human needs or desires. This theory is officially recognised as ‘definism’ as it stresses both the possibility of definition of ethical terms and also the scientific basis of ethics as an empirical science. Fundamentally, definism stresses that the meaning of ethical terms could be construed by non-ethical properties. The opposite view, ethical non-naturalism was famously defended by Moore.

Let us assume that we are interested in linguistic meaning. If meaning is what we can have concepts or terms about, we shall assume that some theory of meaning is correct. Our account of definition depends upon what theory of meaning we accept. Suppose that we construe meaning as some special class of mental entity, “idea” in our heads” (the classical ideational theory of meaning); to translate or define one ethical term or concept by another is to discover the labels or properties which are attached to different (sorts of) mental entities. This is mentalism. But we may find mentalism suspect; after all, it may be argued, all definition require language learning proceeds as follow: we observe other people’s behaviour and our verbal behaviour is watched by others; sometime we are corrected; sometimes we are reinforced in our verbal behaviour by the behaviour of others.

The position that there is not more to definition over and beyond what we can discover from overt behaviour in obvservable circumstances is the stand-point of Moore’s indefinism. Ethical terms are seen as stimulus terms. The feeling of ethical cognitivists is that ethical concepts such as ‘good’ or ‘right’ can be defined through correlations between external stimulus and verbal behaviour. This does not presuppose any reference to consciousness, thoughts, or mental pictures; if we are ethical cognitivists we are not supposed to think that there are some mentalistic connections between stimulus and verbal behaviour. And even if there are such things as mental states, they are irrelevant to definition. The view that definiens are mental entities is, one this view a museum myth, an uncritical semantics, to borrow a linguist idea:
Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels1 (Quine W. V. 1969, p. 27).

Now suppose an ethical cognitivist just like a linguist is attempting a radical definition of a term. All that she can go by are the utterances of an informant in certain observable circumstances. Behavioural evidence allows the cognitivist to match the informant’s utterances with some observed situation after regular trials. The cognitivist first recognizes how the users of the definiens say “yes” and “No”. She assumes that the user of such definiens will assent to a given utterance (e.g. good = fine) depending on its contextual relevance.

The thesis of indeterminacy of definition is that given the truth of definition of ethical terms, there is no such thing as right or wrong definition. Definiens are not “out there” to be picked up by skillful users. The cognitivist must identify and define ethical terms-plural endings, pronouns, numerals, ‘is’ (identity), logical particles (‘and’, ‘or’, ‘but’, etc). There may not be a successful matching of assent with stimulations. But the cognitivist does some guess-work when she considers the particles in the observation sentences in which they occur. Furthermore, she can not discover when, for the same user of ethical terms the word (e.g. ‘good’) and its definiens are synonymous!2 (Stevenson, 1993, p. 43). To get by, the cognitivist must rely upon some hypotheses which match sentences of the new terms with some associated ethical sentences. These hypotheses are called analytical hypotheses. We are now in a better position to formulate the indeterminacy thesis. Call it ID thesis: ID Thesis: Given the truth of definition of ethical terms, rival analytical hypotheses, each taking account of all the verbal behaviour and disposition to verbal behaviour, may result in different, incompatible definitions. If according to one analytical hypotheses, ‘good’ like any linguistic assumption ‘gavagai’ is a rabbit-stage, and according to another “undetached part of a rabbit”, neither is right or wrong. There isn’t fact of the matter to be right or wrong about.

Consider now the Instructability of Reference: Call it IR. IR Thesis: Given definition of ethical terms and the Indeterminacy of definition of ethical terms, there is no way of telling what the singular terms of an ethical property refer to, or what the predicates of the term are true of. Quine’s form of argument on ‘What There is’ aptly put this position clearer:
Reference is nonsense except relative to a coordinate system --- it is meaningless to ask whether, in general, our terms “rabbit”, “rabbit part”, “number”, really refer respectively to rabbits, rabbit parts, numbers, etc, rather than to some ingeniously permutated denotations. It is meaningless to ask this absolutely; we can meaningfully ask it only relative to some background language. When we ask, “Does ‘rabbit’ really refer to rabbits?” Someone can counter with the question ‘Refer to rabbits in what sense of ‘rabbits’? thus launching a regress, and we need a background language to regress into” (Queine, 1961, pp. 16-17).

Consider, again Japanese classifiers. They are attached to numbers to form compound numerals: one classifier attached to one another – say 5, yields 5 items of a given kind (say animals); another classifier, attached to the same number yields 5 items of a different kind of thing (e.g. pencils) etc. So, classifers may tell us about the number of some kind of thing, e.g. 5 heads of oxen. Again, instructability of reference affects terms such as ‘good’ ‘right’, taking the word ‘good’ as the alphabet ‘alpha’. Evidence will not show us when “good” like ‘alpha’ is used as a concrete general term, as in “good” is that which is ‘fine’, ‘beautiful’ etc as “alpha” is used as a concrete general term e.g.. “That inscription begins with an “alpha”, and when “alpha” is used as an abstract general term – “Alpha” is a letter” as letter “G” stands for “Good”. The position of the word “Good” in ethical parlance helps; but this is an appeal to special features of definism. Does “Good” like “alpha” name the formula or the code number of the letter (seven)? is a question we can answer only when we have settled on some analytical hypotheses (Quine, p. 48).

Thus stated, instructability of reference seems to follow from indeterminacy thesis. For if there isn’t something that is the correct definition, not just of ethical terms, but also of reference terms, it follows that there isn’t one “right” referent. There isn’t something that is the case about whether ‘good’ as the linguistic referent ‘gavagai’ refers to undetached ethical contextual meaning as ‘gavagai’ refers to undetached rabbit parts etc. Actually, the correct inference ought to be that if there is one referent, radical definition does not reveal it. One self-same referent may be conceptualized differently. May be, Moore seems to subscribe to this assumption and thus inconsequentially concludes that ethical terms are indefinable as they are like atomic, indivisible theoretical entities. Unfortunately Moore’s naturalistic fallacy becomes more controversial when his argument forces the acceptance of ID or IR as an entailment of ontological relativity. Let us first state ontological relativity (OR).

OR Thesis: Given ethical definism, just like linguistic behaviourism, what exists exist only relative to the choice of a manual of definition or reduction of an ethical term to its constituents (Bruce W. Brower, 1993, p. 221)5. The claim here can be assessed better by our understanding of the main thesis of naturalistic ethics which can be stated in the following terms: Ethics reflects moral behaviours according to which ethics is an empirical science such that ethical statements can be reduced to the natural sciences (physical or social), and ethical questions are answered wholly on the basis of the findings of those sciences. In other words, naturalistic ethics is said to be a non-valuational enterprise; any ethical value is said to be confirmable through the methods of science.

A. Hence, ethical naturalism is the doctrine that moral facts are facts of nature; and a major difficulty in the articulation of the theory is multifarious definitions of “nature”, “natural”, and “natural law”. The following are the variants of ethical naturalism, namely:

(i) ethical values are reducible to natural properties; e.g. a good action is an action in conformity with the proper function of a thing as in the Stoic’s notion of “activities which are consequential upon a thing’s nature.

(ii) “virtue ethics” includes the doctrine that ethical good is the realization of the capacities of a human being “living well and doing well”. The foregoing seems to be reminiscent of Socrates’ argument with Euthyphro in the following passage of his Dialogue, The Euthyphro:
Socrates. And what is piety and what is impiety? … Tell me what is the nature of this idea, and then I shall have a standard to which I may look, And by which I may measure actions whether yours or those of any one else, and then I shall be able to say that such and such an action is pious, such another impious.

Euthyphro. I will tell you, if you like … Piety … is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them.
Socrates. Very good Euthyphro, you have now given me the sort of answer which I wanted. But whether what you say is true or not I cannot as yet tell (Euthyphro, pp 386 – 88).

According to Euthyphro, being dear to the gods is a necessary condition for being pious and a sufficient condition as well. This general approach to concepts – the approach that expects to find necessary and sufficient conditions – is called in ethical cognitivism “classical view” of concepts which is the summary of the business of ethical cognitivism. Here,, Moore’s thesis of indefinism is further exposed as being of little account. ‘Good’ in whichever context it appears carried moral flavour. In the above passage, Socrates seems to conflate ‘good’ with ‘piety’. ‘Piety’, i.e. ‘good’ is what the ‘gods’ sanction to be morally ‘irreprehensible’. Put clearer, let us assume that ‘G’ stands for ‘God’ and ‘gd’ stands for ‘Good’. To assert that “God is good” is to declare its schematic equivalence G = gd. Interestingly, ‘gd’ here becomes a predicate of ‘G’, but curiously, not a necessary predicate, as ‘gd’ may not identify or replace ‘G’ salva veritate. In this sense, there could be a plausible insight in Moore’s argument of indefinism; but that does not preclude the assumption that ‘gd’ does not define ‘G’. The limited explanation of ‘gd’ about ‘G’ makes gd a partial definition of ‘G’, truly, not an absolute one. If we exclaim ‘God is Good’! ‘Good’ as a predicate here offers a partial definition of God as ‘God’ and ‘Good’ may not be perfect equal or equivalent terms. ‘Good’ is an aspect of God’s qualities. There are other attributes of ‘God’ other than ‘Good’. This is the sense in which one could construe the plausible insight in Moore’s argument. However, it is instructive to note that definition of terms, particularly, ethical terms are cultural-bound.

Since some of the arguments to come later depend upon what goes on in Philosophy of Science, I should draw attention to the question of relativity in science; according to some, natural scientific theories are undetermined by evidence; that is, two moral theories can account equally well for all observations; two rival theories might be empirically equivalent, yet neither of them is the correct theory about what the world is. There is no uniquely correct description of the world. The ontological components of any scientific theory are defined in the theory, not by some extratheoretical, external reality. To use Quine’s style of ontological reasoning because of its relevance to ethical definism:

Our acceptance of an ontology is, I think, similar in principle to our acceptance of a scientific theory, say a system of physics; we adopt, at least in so far we are reasonable, the simplest conceptual scheme into which the disordered fragments of raw experience can be fitted and arranged … To whatever, extent the adoption of any system of scientific theory may be said to be a matter of language, the same – but no more – may be said of the adoption of an ontology (Quine, 1961, pp 16-17).

Ontological relativism in science seems to carry over into ontological relativity in the context of radical definition of ethical terms. The antirealist in science asserts that there is no fact of the matter to disagree about in radical definition.

I now wish to suggest how ontological relativism is suspect. The crux of the matter is whether there is a fact of the matter to be right and to be wrong about. For if definition is about facts of ethical terms, there must be a correct definition of ethical words and reference terms, even if we are not sure how to go about telling which. That there are correct definitions of ethical terms would imply the falsity of ontological relativity. To challenge indeterminacy is to challenge the view that instructability of reference entails ontological relativity.

Understanding the problem with Moore’s naturalistic fallacy, let’s conflate his position with a Yorubaman (somebody from an ethnic group in the Sub-Shahara Africa) and two English men on translation of the word “rabbit”: two Englishmen see a rabbit run-by and utters: “Ehoro”. One Englishman takes the Yoruba Speaker as having said “There goes a rabbit-stage”, the other construes him as saying “There goes an undetached part of a rabbit”. So far as empirical evidence goes, both translations accord with the speaker’s utterance. So, shouldn’t we conclude that “Ehoro” in Yoruba has no unique reference? That there is nothing to be wrong or right about? Shouldn’t we grant that whether “Ehoro” in Yoruba exists as rabbits, rabbit-stages or undetached parts of a rabbit depends upon assumptions about meaning in English? Now without any Quinian notion about the matter, we should say that the two Englishmen are wrong since in Yoruba ehoro-talk is about whole-rabbits not about rabbit-parts, rabbit-stages or undetached parts of rabbits. It may be true that if we assume that my utterances are all that they can go by, together with their guess-work about individuation in Yoruba, they can not tell what “ehoro” (uniquely) refers to. But there is something to be right and wrong about, namely that “ehoro” uniquely refers to whole-rabbits. The other way is to say that when one Englishman defines or translates “ehoro” to refer to a rabbit-stage, he means just what a Yoruba means when he refers to a whole rabbit. This is to say we are talking about the same thing in different ways. Uniqueness of referent is still presupposed. What someone might retort is that I could not say that the English men have a bad translation or definition, given the assumption of a correct theory of semantics.

The foregoing analogy explains the question of translation or definition of ethical terms or better still, reduction of ethical words to non-ethical sentences. Interesting, Davidson, who accepts something like IR for example, objects as follow:
… all the evidence for or against a theory of truth (interpretation, translation) comes in form of facts about what events or situations in the world cause, or would cause speakers to assent to or dissent from, each sentence in the speaker’s repertoire. (Davidson, p. 230).

Davidson, of course, adds that any theory of reference ought to be placed within the context of a theory of truth. The relation of reference holds between words and objects, singular terms and their denotations. So we might say that speakers of a language accepts sentences such as “X refers to Y”, or “P(a predicate) is true of A” under some observable circumstances. Now suppose that there is a permutation of the world for which our reference goes as follows: on one scheme, an ethical refers to an object ‘X’, on a second, it refers to ‘Φ(X)’; where a predicate is true of all x’s such that Fx, the second is true of all x’s such that F Φ(X).7 Yet both schemes would be equivalent: every sentence that is true in one scheme will be true in the other. There’ll be more than one way of pairing objects and names, predicates and what they are true of – i.e., the thesis of instructability of reference is true.

Now all this is unclear about how ontological relativism is avoidable given that all the evidence for a theory of truth or definition and of special significance here, the definition of ethical terms comes from external causes. The result is not more, I think, than the claim that on the basis of evidence we can not tell what terms apply to or what predicates or definition of ethical terms (with reference to Moore’s indefinism) are true of. Now this is indeed close, very close to the Quinian case for ontological relativity. Yet there are resources for avoiding ontological relativity. Davidson accepts that semantics require “intentional attitudes towards sentences, such as holding true”. But, again, intentional attitudes are given a construal which will not do: intensional attitudes – all of them, must be results of some objective situation or meaning; the only evidence relevant to indefinition of ethical terms as advocated by Moore is what ethicists hold true in publicly observable situations. So, according to Davidson.

What the Philosophy of Science Suggests
In the Philosophy of Science, one could be a realist in different ways. I shall state, briefly, two of these ways:

R1 There is a world independent of theories:
theoretical terms refer (to theoretical entities);
scientific theories are capable of being true or false.

R2 There is a world independent of theories:
theoretical terms refer (to theoretical entities);
but scientific theories are neither true nor false.

R1 accepts both realism about theoretical entities and realism about theories. (Perhaps we should call these ontological and epistemological realism respectively)

R2 accepts realism about theoretical entities yet rejects epistemological realism. In a recent work, How the Laws of Physics Lie, the argument for R2 is as follows: Given a good theory of explanation (causal explanation) we ought to believe that theoretical entities exist (i.e. theoretical terms refer): molecules, electrons, potrons, muons, etc, exist-because, in experiments their causal influences are detectable.

Furthermore, an allusion to a ‘two-level argument of ‘polar concepts’ and ‘paradigm case argument’ may prove the claim here. Let us take any ethical term, say, ‘Good’. To Moore, this term is not definable because it is the smallest unit of moral expression of itself. It is indivisible. The point of confusion is, by offering explanation of what ‘good’ is not, ‘good’ is being defined. Moore is inclined to lament the naturalness of ‘good’ which makes any of its definiendum suspect. But for the reason that Moore is denying the naturalist explanation of good, he is offering an explanation of good itself as he is alleging that the definition of the naturalist is fallacious. But one can advance a two level argument against Moore, in defence of the naturalist. The first is the polar concept argument and the other is the paradigm case argument. ‘Good’ could be construed in the light of its polar concept ‘bad’. If there is ‘Good’, then, there must be ‘bad’. If we can not even suggest instances of ‘Good’ as its definiens, we may be able to imagine such from the instances of ‘bad’. The same explanation reflects the relevance of ‘paradigm’ case argument. If there is ‘good’, it is because there is a standard, paradigm of assessing this term, vis-à-vis instances of things that are good etc.

II
Ethical and Ontological Relativity
Ethical definism is tied to the notion of a conceptual scheme; it asserts (like linguistic relativity) that different definition of ethical terms like languages are different ways of ‘seeing’ or thinking about the world. To use a very relevant linguistics theory, Whorf,

We are inclined to think of language simply as a technique of expression, and not to realize that language first of all is a classification and arrangement of the stream of sensory experience which results in a certain world order, a certain segment of the world that is easily expressible by the type of symbolic means that language employs. (Benjamenin Lee Whorf, p. 55).

Conceptual schemes are said to be ways of organizing the data of experience; they proffer concepts, categories (whatever) through which we seek to give some order to the flux of experience. Roughly, ethical relativity amounts to the view that ethical terms are conceptual schemes. But now, add to this the assertion that conceptual schemes define different worlds; ethical relativism carries with it ontological relativity. But do conceptual schemes define reality? Do different schemes define different worlds?
The notorious difficulty is how to tell whether an ethical term different from the one we use is a different conceptual scheme. If an ethical term can not be defined or translated into ours, we can not infer that it is a different conceptual scheme. The intranslatability may result from differences of experience (data); speakers of the foreign language may, simply, perceive what we do not.

In order to discover difference of conceptual schemes, ethical terms must be definable by other words, and this presupposes that we and the users of such ethical terms talk about the same experiences. But if this is so, there are problems. First, if the discovery of different conceptual schemes entails that the two cultures share some data, then they experience the same thing; there is some extra-ethical reality shared by both cultures. Ontological relativity collapses. Second, if the terms are inter-definable, each concept in one can be matched with some concept in the other; the concepts may be different, but this is no proof of differences in conceptual schemes: we are just reporting the same data in two different ways. So, either conceptual relativism does not entail ontological relativity, conceptual relativism is undiscoverable if true, or conceptual relativism is just false.
Now if formulating conceptual relativism is so problematic, one had better not place much weight on it if one is interested in defending ontological relativity. Davidson argues that the idea of a conceptual scheme is a carry-over from the old distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. Roughly, the distinction is as follows: any true (or false) sentence owes its truth (or falsity) to either meaning or to the world, or to both.

Analytic propositions by virtue of their empirical content; actually, synthetic propositions are true or false in virtue of both. So, there are truths of words only (analytic truths) and there are truths about the world, about experience. This dualism of meaning content and empirical content has as its variant the dualism of language and the world, of conceptual scheme and empirical content. But what is wrong with the dualism of scheme and content? According to Davidson, it is that there can not be some experience or data, or, something independent of, but common to all experience and neutral to all schemes. All the idioms of the Whorfian thesis – language organizes, predicts, fits, accounts for experience (i.e. nature, reality, promptings) – are unfruitful. I shall not go into the arguments. They are meant to show that there is no clear ground for the claim that conceptual schemes are different languages. So, ontological relativity is threatened. But Davidson denies realism as well: if we can’t decide that our conceptual schemes are different, we can’t say that cultures share a conceptual scheme hence an ontology. Both relativism and realism thus turn out to rely upon a ‘dogma’ (“the third dogma of empiricism”) – the dualism of scheme and content. Now, do we have independent reasons for being realists about ethical terms?
III
Realism
According to scientific realism, the terms of a mature scientific theory refer; and, scientific laws are true or approximately true independently of what people think. We saw how ontological realism in science can be defended from a causal account: entities exist if they are causes. A causal account of reference of linguistic terms (outside science) would begin with some notion of primitive reference – demonstratives are used when what they demonstratively refer to are present. Reference depends on causal connection between terms and their referent – established by, perhaps, some form of baptism, followed by imitation by others. Reference is further traced by formation of the intention to communicate: predicates are so cited that not every utterance need by causally connected to the referent – only some utterance need be connected. Proper names are introduced through causal connections, the baptism method and intentions (Gricean). Quantifiers will introduce descriptions of theoretical entities etc., etc. The model of language that comes out is that of “mapping the world”. But to say that language maps the world to say that some sentences of the language will be true, and predicates will apply to things in the world just when things in the world correspond to the predicates. Reference will correlate terms to some parametrization of the world.

In a Putnamian account of reference (and ethical terms):
As language develops, the causal and non-casual links between bits of language and aspects of the world become more and more complex and more various. To look for one uniform link between word and thought and object of word or thought is to look for the occult; but to see our evolving and expanding notion of reference as just a proliferating family is to miss the essence of the relation between language and thought do assymptotally correspond to reality, to some extent at least. A theory of reference is a theory of the correspondence in question. (Putman, 1975, p.290

This is as close to a realist account of reference as one can get. I will not discuss it further. But if it is correct, indeterminancy, its kindred-in-scrutability of reference and ontological relativity, do not hold good.

Ethical Relativism
By “cultural relativism” I mean the position that truth is entirely defined by the culture of the inquirers. What I have been doing is to suggest that cultural relativism needs more for its defense than many suppose. It seems true that nothing in considerations about ethical terms would back up cultural relativism in as promising a way as the triad of theses: indeterminacy, inscrutability of reference and ontological relativity. The pull or relativism is in philosophy of science – in theories of incommeasurability of theories (as against convergence). To call into question the gamut of claims about translation is, in some way, to question cultural relativism. It is difficult to deny that define ethical term depends upon the specific terms being defined.
But to challenge ethical relativism we need not deny that specific meanings depend upon specific utterances. We need to argue for the claim that definition (in general) is shared by different languages (cultures).

It is remarkable that Quine sees the paradox of ethical relativism as it is supported by the indeterminacy thesis: When two logically incompatible theories in science are compatible with all observations, we have the problem of deciding what to say, whether we are to say that one is true and the other false; or, do we say that truth only applies to observational ingredients of a theory? If either of the two theories is ours, we would opt for the truth of our own theory. Just replace “theory” by “definition manual” or “definition and obtain the question of indeterminacy of definition.

This has the ring of cultural relativism. That way, however, lies paradox. Truth, says the cultural relativist, is culture-bound. But if it were, then he, within his own culture, ought to see his own culture-bound truth as absolute. He cannot proclaim cultural relativism without rising above it, and he can not rise above it without giving it up. (Quine, p.375)

Perhaps our paradigm for the study of certain ethical concepts in Nigeria languages can be cultural relativist just in case we are able to go beyond ethical relativism? Where is the truth of cultural relativist paradigm? I am not denying the plausibility of cultural relativism. But where lies is its truth in the study of language? Actual study of Nigerian languages should help us answer this question. Consider again Davidson: different points of view make sense, but only if there is a common coordinate system on which to plot them; yet the existence of a common system belies the claim of dramatic incomparability. If we wish to be relativists in the study of literature, we should be clear about what we want to be. We must at least convince ourselves that we can coherently by what we want to be. If, indeed, to be a coherent ethical relativist, a linguist must not deem the truth of his own culture absolute, the task is to define the truth of relativism as if it follows simply from cultural difference. Does cultural relativism operate when we attempt to translate one Nigerian language into another?
Does indeterminacy affect the Kanuri linguist attempting to define Kanuri into Igbo in a way radically different from a Kanuri-English translation? To proclaim the truth of ethical relativism, we must at least make clear what claims we make on its behalf.


REFERENCES
W. V. Quine, “Ontological Relativity”, in Ontological Relativity and other Essays, (New York : Columbia University Press, 1969),
W. V. Quine, “On What There Is”, in From a Logical Point of View (New York : Harper and Row, 1961).

Bruce W. Brower, “Dispositional Ethical Realism” in An International Journal of Social, Political and Legal Philosophy, pp. 221ff.
G. E. Moore, Naturalistic fallacy.

Donald Davidson, “The Instructability of Reference” in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, New York, Oxford University Press, 1985.

Benjamenin Lee Whorf, “The Punctual and Segmentive Aspects of Verbs in Hopi” in Language, Thought and Reality, (Cambridge, Massachusefts, 1964.
Hilary Putnam, “Language and Reality” in Mind, Language and Reality Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2, Cambridge Press, 1975.

Quine, “On Empirically Equivalent Systems of The World” in Erkenntrnis (IX), 1975.

Ian Hacking, Representing and Intervening, Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Nancy Cartwright, How The Law of Physics Lie, Oxford, London, Claridon Press, 1983.

G.E, Moore, Principia Ethica, Cambridge University Press, London, 1976. Moore has expounded his thesis of naturalistic fallacy in a reasonable portion of this book.