Break down

It just feels like philosophy is the study of where our regular ways of justifying and understanding the world simply break down. At a sufficiently fundamental level, we no longer are able to use our normal methods for figuring out what's true and what's not. So we have to take linguistic frameworks for granted, be pragmatic, appeal to the inescapable, or refer to fundamental beliefs that we are stuck with. One of the things that philosophy is, is the attempt to figure out what the hell to do when our normal ways of dealing with problems implode.

Inescapability

I think the language of inescapability is a very good one for considering these issues. I'm just going to do an intuition dump here. Don't expect arguments. But then again, I don't expect any readers, so it's all good!

Why is it that we think that epistemology is real, factual? Cuneo draws three undesirable conclusions from Epistemic Nihlism, and then claims that anything besides Epistemic Realism succumbs to these undesirable results. Let me focus on the last two: if epistemic nihlism is right and it's not self-defeating, then no entity can display an epistemic merit or dismerit and there can be no arguments for anything. But this doesn't seem to follow through all the way (though he comes closer when he talks about epistemology being indispensable for theorizing). Enoch's analysis is a good one for this, it seems. Epistemology is inescapable, because the evaluation of beliefs, evidence, arguments and reasons to believe as better and worse is an inescapable one for a human being. And Enoch analyzes this into two parts: that epistemology is indispensable to some project, and that project is itself inescapable. Put most strongly, the issues with epistemology not being real is that epistemology seems indispensable to every rational project, and rationality itself is inescapable. Epistemology goes very deep to human psychology, that's the real source of our confidence in its reality. Without it we're lost.

Logic is similar. Just as every cognitive adventure requires our ability to evaluate some evidence, justifications, beliefs as better and others as worse at depicting reality, every cognitive adventure seems to require our ability to deduce valid conclusions from statements, to understand what is entailed by various propositions. (Inasmuch as much of math is logic, much of math is normative in this sense.) So in a similar sense, if logic is a myth then so are all of our cognitive efforts. We're left drowning, with no where to go and we'd just have to give up. So logic is inescapable.

How does this count in favor of epistemology and logic? I don't know. Maybe Enoch's right. Maybe Plantinga's right. Maybe William James is right. Maybe they're all wrong. I dunno.

But what about ethics, then? Enoch argued that ethics is inescapable in the same way that epistemology is. The point is that ethics is inescapable for our cognitive adventures as well, because how can we embark on our projects without the ability to deliberate between choices of action? But this seems troubling to me. The intuition is clear, I think--if ethics is false we still know how to do science, we still know how to know things, and maybe that's enough for us to be justified in. Maybe well be OK knowing that as far as deliberation goes, we're irrational. We're more deeply committed to the cognitive adventures that require epistemology and logic than we are to those efforts that require us to deliberate (and I wonder if the way the debate has gone in philosophy is evidence of this claim). That seems to be psychologically true.

So, why isn't ethics as inescapable as epistemology or logic? Because it doesn't invade the rest of our intellectual efforts the way epistemology and logic do. It does invade our everyday living and decisions. I don't think it just comes down to preferring the explanatory project over the deliberative one. If epistemology and logic aren't true, then that's a threat to ethics as well, we're lost in deliberation too. Epistemology and logic are just BIGGER, and WIDER than ethics in this sense. They invade more stuff. And the failure to have ethical obligations wouldn't threaten our scientific practice, for example.

So ethics is more like biology than epistemology in this picture, which is exactly why it's not inescapable. If biology is false, we don't feel lost, we feel as if we've gained some insight.

There a only a few ways, then, to argue for ethics being real on the model of epistemology or logic. First, you could argue that ethics is as inescapable as epistemology or logic is. This is, in short, what Enoch tried to do. I argue that he didn't succeed, and that this is a hard way to go because epistemology does seem more difficult to resist than ethics. Enoch tried to show that ethics is indispensable to deliberation, and that this makes ethics sufficiently "Too Large to Fail." Is there a way to make ethics any bigger? So that it invades the rest of our lives the same way that epistemology does? This is one way to proceed. The other way to proceed is to argue that even if ethics isn't inescapable the way that epistemology is, it is dragged along by epistemology. This, in short, is what Cuneo tried to argue. And how can you do this? You can argue that commitment to episteomlogy (which is inescapable) commits you to certain views that will vindicate ethics. For example, epistemology is normative, so if you thought that there was no normative knowledge you'd be in trouble. And Sayre-McCord made this point too. I've argued that this argument is unsatisfying unless you identify where the arguments against moral realism went wrong, because otherwise we can just shrug our shoulders and say that the inescapability of epistemology made us do it.

So where to go from here? Either find a problem with one of the arguments against moral realism, or show that moral realism is inescapable by puffing it up until it's too big to fail. Or find parts of ethics that are inescapable. Or (as Cuneo's backup argument does) try to claim that ethics just is epistemology (at least sometimes). Or, claim that epistemology just is ethics, all the time.

Questions I want to know the answers to

1. If epistemology is normative (as it seems to be), and if many of the arguments against moral realism can plausibly be extended to epistemic realism (as Cuneo argues), how can we explain the common sense belief that epistemic realism is more secure than ethical realism? Are we just making a gross error?

2. If epistemic and mathematical entities are indispensable to science (as realists in both camps claim), then how come our access to scientific facts is generally taken to be more evident than our access to epistemic and mathematical facts? Are we just making a gross error?

3. Cuneo claims that "some moral and epistemic facts are mutually implicative" (79). Is this because for any discourse X, X facts and epistemic facts are mutually implicative?

4. Is there any interesting sense in which mathematical and highly theoretical facts are normative? (I should add: probably not.)

The Argument from Queerness and Epistemic Norms

Scanlon, "What We Owe to Each Other", p.59

"Accepting a judgment that X is a reason for doing A seems to involve an element of normative commitment to, or endorsement of, a normative conclusion, an element that may be thought to be missing from the acceptance of a mere judgment of fact...[further:] such an account will construe 'taking something to be a reason' as a belief in a kind of non-natural fact that many regard as metaphysically odd...it may help to diminish this tendency toward skepticism to emphasize that the considerations I have just been discussing apply to reasons of all kinds--to reasons for belief as well as to reasons for action...so what we are concerned with here is not a distinction between facts and values, or between theoretical and practical reason, as these dichotomies are normally understood."

Sayre-McCord, "Moral Theory and Explanatory Impotence": "Once it has been granted that some explanations are better than others, many obstacles to a defense of moral values disappear. In fact, all general objections to the existence of value must be rejected as too strong. Moreover, whatever ontological niche and epistemological credentials we find for explanatory values will presumably serve equally well for moral values. (Of course, this leaves open the possibility that more specific attacks may be leveled at moral values; the point is just that once epistemic values are allowed, no general arguments against the existence of values can work."

Terence Cuneo, "The Normative Web": "Let's suppose for the moment that moral realists really are committed to the claim that moral facts are intrinsically motivating. Do we have any reason to think that epistemic facts are different in this respect?"

Reading Nagel Part I

"Just as their are rational requirements on thought, there are rational requirements on action, and altruism is one of them."

I suppose that he's referring to epistemology and ethics for this analogy. (I originally wrote something stupid here, but i deleted it!)

"just as the capacity to accept certain theoretical arguments is a condition of rationality" there's the ethics/epistemology comparison again.

"Something beyond justificaiton is needed." I didn't read this carefully enough, but I'm moving slowly and have to go on. But I think he just gave a version of the regress argument against foundationalism in epistemology? Or not?

The way he frames things reminds me of Smith: on the hand desires can't seem to provide the categorical normativity that we're looking for; what we're really looking for is a way to say that one who denies ethics is going against reason. On the other hand, the psychological picture of desires underwriting motivations is a very attractive one.

"I believe that an explanation can be discovered for the basic prinicples of ethics, but not a justification."

"Philosophers who believe that there is no room for rational assessment of the basic springs of motivation will tend to be internalists, but at the cost of abandoning claims to moral objectivity. One way to do this is to build motivatoinal content into the meanign of ethical assertions by turning them into expressions of a special sort of inclination..." Expressivism. "A stronger position one which ties the movitation to the cognitive content of ethical calims requires the postulatoin of motivational influences which one cannot reject once one becomes aware of them."

He claims Moore's intuitionism is a result of recognizing the distance between natural facts and evaluative ones, but failing to produce an internalist position, th erelevent inclinatoin or attitude.

Hume: "Among the conditions for the presence of a reason for action there must always be a deirse or inclination capable ofmotivating one to act accordingly...given Hume's famous restirctions on rational assessment of the passions and of preferences, the possibility of justifying morality is strictly limited. Any justificaiton ends finallywith the rationally gratuitous presence of theemotion of sympathy; if that condition were not met, one would simply have no reason to be moral."

"But still, the motivational basis is prior to and independent of the ethical system which derives from it. A quite different sort of theory would be necessary to alter that relation of priority. Plato and Aristotle constitute examples of such a rebillion against the priority of psychology...Fortunately, we have a far etter example in th eperson of Kant, who is explicitly and consciously driven by the demand for an ethical system whose motivaitonal grip is not dependent on desires which must simply be taken for granted... A hypothetical imperative is the only kind which Hume regards as possible. It states what a given desire provides one with a motivation to do, and it applies only if one is subject to that desire. The desire itself is not comanded by the imperative. Consequently no hypothetical imperative can state an uncondiationl requirement on action."

Just thinking about the thesis again: a really cool result would be to show that realism of all sorts is tied to each other. Scientific realism and ethical realism rise and fall together. This could show that epistemic realism isn't really getting its force from anything but the assumption that our science is true in a real sense. Tie all the realisms together, rather than all the normative stuff together (but really this is the same thing). Another really cool result would be to reveal how exactly the objections go wrong, if they're originally made in the strong way as opposed to the weaker one.

III. The Solution

"The issue of priority between ethics and motivaiton theory is for an internalist of crucial importance. The position which I shall defend resembles that ofKant in two repsects: first ir ptovides an account of ethical motivation which doesn't rely on the assumption that motivatoinal factor is already present among the conditions of any moral requirement...there are reasons for action which are specifically moral; it is because they represent moral requirements that they can motivate, and not vice versa...Certain ethical principles are themselves propositions of motivatoin theory so fundamental tha tthey cannot be derived from or defined in terms of previously understood motivations..thus they define motivational possibilities, rather than presupposing them...The second way in which my position resembles Kant's is that it assigns a central role in the operation of ethical motives to a certain feature of the agent's metaphysical conception of himself. On Kant's view the conception is that of freedom whereas on my view it is the conceptio nof oneself as merely a person among others equally real."

We are not fuly free to be amoral, or insusceptible to moral claims. That is what makes us men.

So according to this way of viewing things, Hume is right about motivations and desires, but there's just a desire that is so inescapable it might as well be objective. It can't be resisted, so neither can morality.

This strikes me as suprising: "This solutoin may appear to involve an ellegitimate conflation of explanatory and normative inquiries. But a close connection between the two is already embodied in the orindary concept of a reason, for we can adduce reasons either to explain or to justify action." Hmm...I wonder if we could escape the muck of trying to explain explanation by providing a reason-based, normative account. For later.

IV. "Interpretation is not a species of justification. A justificaiton must proceed within the context of a system of reasons, by showing that certain conditions are met which provide sufficient reason for hat which is being justified. Since my claims concern the formal character of any system of reasons (explanatory of normative) which can provide the context for particular rational justificaions,there can be nothing more fundamental to appeal to in the way of reasons for adhering to the specific conditions. They lie beyond the range of justification."

This would seem important for epistemology as well, and defending foundationalism against the regress argument.

"Moral and other practical requirements are grounded in a metaphysics of action, and finally in a metaphysics of the person. The more central and unavoidable is the conception of oneself on which the possibility ofmoral motivation can be shown to depend the closer we will have come to demonstrating that the demands of ethics are inescapable."

What I love about Korsgaard is the deep account she gives of action, motivation, reasons, and ethics, and this is what it's like to read Nagel too. And Scanlon. These guys are great.

"I have no confidence that it is a necessary truth that we are constituted as we are, inthe fundamental respects whic hgive rise to our susceptibility to moral considerations. But if we were not so constituted, we should be unrecognizably diffeernt, and tha tmay be enough for the purpose of the argumen."

"There are parallels here to the requiements on theoretical reasoning."