In the previous chapter I argued that it is not possible to give an epistemic reason in favor of Epistemic Anti-Realism. One way of putting the difficulty we encountered is in the following way: one is either challenging Epistemic Realism from within or without epistemology. The challenge can’t come from outside of epistemology, because there are no reasons to believe that are prior to epistemology. On the other hand, I argued that there is no way for the challenge to come from within epistemology either. This is because one is never able to challenge the legitimacy of a system of norms—an external accusation—from within that system of norms. There is something else that one can do, but this is a challenge for epistemology, not a challenge against it.
My motivation remains a desire to investigate the plausibility of Moral Realism, and the discussion towards the end of the last chapter applied the earlier discussion to an attempt to ground Moral Realism in Epistemic Realism. I argued that such accounts fail in a systematic way.
In this chapter my discussion will follow a similar pattern. As in the last chapter, I will investigate a foundational, basic question in epistemology. My concern will be whether the arbitrary can be completely eliminated from Epistemology, even from an Epistemic Realist’s perspective. I will enter into this difficult discussion through a paper by David Enoch and Joshua Shechter, “How are Basic Belief-Forming Methods Justified?” Engaging with their ideas has been very helpful in developing my own, and I believe that it will ease us into a consideration of whether the arbitrary can be eliminated from epistemology. I will argue that they fail to eliminate the arbitrary from epistemology, and for good reason—the arbitrary cannot be completely eliminated from the Epistemic Realist’s picture of epistemology.
There are two pressing concerns that I think deserve to be raised against this account. The first concern is that this picture predicts far too much disagreement between otherwise competent believers. How is there so much consensus? I will give an account of the restraints that believers face that can explain the consensus. A second concern follows quickly after this one: how is it possible for an Epistemic Realist to recognize that there is a degree of arbitrariness in our epistemology, that some things that we accept truly are basic? This is a serious question, and I wish to grapple with it at length in my final chapter.
If this argument is right, then here’s the picture that we emerge with: if we accept Epistemic Realism there is a certain arbitrariness in our epistemic beliefs that emerges. Nothing, epistemically speaking, can count either for or against our most basic epistemic beliefs. Quickly our epistemic beliefs pile up, and the way to understand the constraints on our epistemology is that epistemic beliefs pile up and can come in conflict with each other, forcing us to choose between competing principles.
Given this understanding, I will argue that the Moral Realist’s best option is to conceive of moral beliefs as justified by some epistemic principle that he might take as basic. There is nothing in epistemology that governs these basic choices, and so the Moral Realist cannot be epistemically criticized for this decision, as long as his Realism doesn’t conflict with any of his other principles. Of course, Anti-Realists contend that Realism does conflict with many other epistemic principles, and Realism cannot be defended without eliminating these objections. But such an approach gives the Realist a precise way to shift the burden of proof onto the Anti-Realist, something Realists often talk about imprecisely.
Finally, before beginning I need to make a confession: I am not up to the task of completely answering the questions that I am raising. The questions that I raise, I believe, are some of the deepest that can be asked, and answering them completely would involve a remarkable philosophical achievement. I don’t believe that I can do that, and I especially don’t think that I can do that in this space. So I will do my best, but even if I don’t succeed completely I will consider my project a success if I can convince the reader that an approach similar to mine is the right one for the Moral Realist.
Friday, March 12, 2010
I will fail in my thesis
To think that I could succeed in my thesis would be to have hubris beyond belief. Given my intellectual and other limitations, here's all that I can hope to do:
* Succeed in an unambitious project
* Fail in an ambitious project
I started thinking I was going to succeed in an unambitious project, yet here I am defending moral realism, grappling with Epistemic Realism!
Here's the only way that I can save myself from obvious failure: I need to hedge. I need to say something like, "This is a good way for the Moral Realist" instead of saying "I think that this is true." Expect a significant hedge, acknowledgment that I'm not up to the task of really defending all of the issues that I raise, to be an important theme in the introductory matter in my thesis.
* Succeed in an unambitious project
* Fail in an ambitious project
I started thinking I was going to succeed in an unambitious project, yet here I am defending moral realism, grappling with Epistemic Realism!
Here's the only way that I can save myself from obvious failure: I need to hedge. I need to say something like, "This is a good way for the Moral Realist" instead of saying "I think that this is true." Expect a significant hedge, acknowledgment that I'm not up to the task of really defending all of the issues that I raise, to be an important theme in the introductory matter in my thesis.
One more outline! Nothing new here.
Chapter One: Epistemic Realism
1.1 What is Epistemic Realism and Anti-Realism?
1.2 There can be no reason to believe Anti-Realism.
1.3 There can be no (good) reason to believe Realism.
1.4 Cuneo's "Companions in Guilt" argument relies on the possibility of reasons to believe Anti-Realism, and therefore the argument is undermined
Chapter Two: Basic Epistemic Beliefs
2.1 Eliminating the arbitrary for epistemology: Intro through Enoch and Shechter
2.2 Enoch and Shechter fail to eliminate the arbitrary from epistemology.
2.3 No matter what you say about the structure of justification, the arbitrary cannot be completely removed from epistemology.
2.4 An account of how the arbitrariness of epistemology is minimized.
2.5 Enoch's "Defense of Robust Meta-Ethical Realism" fails to cohere with the rest of a standard epistemology.
2.6 Since there is a built in arbitrariness to epistemology, the challenge for the Moral Realist is to show that Realism fits in well with the rest of his beliefs.
Chapter Three: The Objections to Moral Realism
3.1 A new parity argument.
3.2 Focusing on a specific argument: the epistemological challenge for ethics and epistemology.
3.3 Most efforts to deal with this objection to Moral Realism fail.
3.4 Focusing on the challenge this objection provides to epistemology shows us how best to deal with the objection. The way is to reject it as a skeptical concern, on par with Evil Demons, the Matrix and Brains in a Vat.
1.1 What is Epistemic Realism and Anti-Realism?
1.2 There can be no reason to believe Anti-Realism.
1.3 There can be no (good) reason to believe Realism.
1.4 Cuneo's "Companions in Guilt" argument relies on the possibility of reasons to believe Anti-Realism, and therefore the argument is undermined
Chapter Two: Basic Epistemic Beliefs
2.1 Eliminating the arbitrary for epistemology: Intro through Enoch and Shechter
2.2 Enoch and Shechter fail to eliminate the arbitrary from epistemology.
2.3 No matter what you say about the structure of justification, the arbitrary cannot be completely removed from epistemology.
2.4 An account of how the arbitrariness of epistemology is minimized.
2.5 Enoch's "Defense of Robust Meta-Ethical Realism" fails to cohere with the rest of a standard epistemology.
2.6 Since there is a built in arbitrariness to epistemology, the challenge for the Moral Realist is to show that Realism fits in well with the rest of his beliefs.
Chapter Three: The Objections to Moral Realism
3.1 A new parity argument.
3.2 Focusing on a specific argument: the epistemological challenge for ethics and epistemology.
3.3 Most efforts to deal with this objection to Moral Realism fail.
3.4 Focusing on the challenge this objection provides to epistemology shows us how best to deal with the objection. The way is to reject it as a skeptical concern, on par with Evil Demons, the Matrix and Brains in a Vat.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
People whose arguments mine resembles/is worse than
People who make arguments similar to mine:
1. Boghossian (Objective Reasons)
2. Dworkin (Objectivity and Truth)
3. Michael Lynch (not as well known as the others)
4. Wittgenstein, maybe?
5. Plantinga (Naturalism Defeated-style argument)
People who deal with the same issue, but who I think I disagree with:
1. Hartry Field
2. Gibbard
3. Sharon Street
4. Blackburn (though I can't find where he talks about epistemology directly. Somewhere in essays on quasi-realism, I suppose and will take another look).
1. Boghossian (Objective Reasons)
2. Dworkin (Objectivity and Truth)
3. Michael Lynch (not as well known as the others)
4. Wittgenstein, maybe?
5. Plantinga (Naturalism Defeated-style argument)
People who deal with the same issue, but who I think I disagree with:
1. Hartry Field
2. Gibbard
3. Sharon Street
4. Blackburn (though I can't find where he talks about epistemology directly. Somewhere in essays on quasi-realism, I suppose and will take another look).
What I'm arguing against
Here's exactly what I'm arguing against (lightly edited by me):
This is Sharon Street (who studied under Korsgaard who in turn was very influenced by Nagel's discussion of the Objective and Subjective standpoints). From this distinction between the practical and the theoretical, Street argues that if we're moral realists we won't be able to reconcile these two standpoints, and since we do need to reconcile these two standpoints, so much the worse for moral realism.
My thesis, in a nutshell, is to deny that the theoretical standpoint looks as she describes it. I start by noting that the theoretical standpoint is guided by norms as well. We, essentially, have to take an inner perspective when it comes to thinking about the theoretical standpoint, because the outer perspective is completely ungoverned. So as long as we're thinking and reasoning we're taking an inner view (like the one that she says is characteristic of the practical standpoint) in the theoretical standpoint. And this means that there's room for the practical standpoint in the theoretical world.
After I argue that there is such room, I have to argue that epistemology does something else for us, which is that it helps point to ways that ethics doesn't conflict internally with the world of belief and theory. But that's something else.
As human beings we are capable of viewing ourselves and our values from two very different standpoints. On the one hand is what I'll call (borrowing Kantian language), the practical standpoint...When I occupy the practical standpoint I think that judgments about normative reasons are true. On the other hand is what I'll call the theoretical standpoint. When we occupy this point of view on ourselves and our values I understand my normative judgments as being shaped by such causes as my upbringing, cultural background and inherited psychological tendencies."
This is Sharon Street (who studied under Korsgaard who in turn was very influenced by Nagel's discussion of the Objective and Subjective standpoints). From this distinction between the practical and the theoretical, Street argues that if we're moral realists we won't be able to reconcile these two standpoints, and since we do need to reconcile these two standpoints, so much the worse for moral realism.
My thesis, in a nutshell, is to deny that the theoretical standpoint looks as she describes it. I start by noting that the theoretical standpoint is guided by norms as well. We, essentially, have to take an inner perspective when it comes to thinking about the theoretical standpoint, because the outer perspective is completely ungoverned. So as long as we're thinking and reasoning we're taking an inner view (like the one that she says is characteristic of the practical standpoint) in the theoretical standpoint. And this means that there's room for the practical standpoint in the theoretical world.
After I argue that there is such room, I have to argue that epistemology does something else for us, which is that it helps point to ways that ethics doesn't conflict internally with the world of belief and theory. But that's something else.
The Master Argument
1. We have some beliefs that are necessarily neither justified nor unjustified.
1.1 A belief in Epistemic Realism cannot possibly be justified, and cannot possibly be unjustified.
1.11 That is, nothing could possibly count either for or against it.
1.12 Any justification of epistemic realism would beg the question against the nihilist, and any justification of epistemic nihilism would be self-defeating.
1.13 Since epistemology is a normative domain, Normative Realism follows from Epistemic Realism.
1.2 Our basic beliefs about what counts as justification, are like Epistemic Realism in this regard.
1.21 Anything may count as a basic belief
1.211 There's no significant difference if we talk about coherentism here. First, because the decision to believe in coherentism isn't basic--if we favor it over foundationalism, we favor it for some reason. Perhaps we don't take on beliefs as basic, though, and instead I should talk of taking coherent sets of beliefs as basic. Fine; that doesn't alter the problem significantly. Restated we would simply say "One must start with one set of beliefs, and there's no way to tell us which one to start with."
1.22 One might build an entire epistemology that looks entirely different from our own, and there would be nothing wrong with that. Nothing could possibly be wrong with that.
1.23 This includes an epistemology that allows one to believe in contradictions, or that doesn't require our beliefs to cohere.
1.24 If you do require your beliefs to cohere, then as you build up your epistemology various beliefs might come into tension. These pressures help form coherent belief systems. This is why we don't believe in ghosts, though we can imagine an epistemology that does require us to believe in ghosts.
1.241 There is legitimate epistemic disagreement, and it's a disagreement about what to take as basic.
1.3 Epistemology is what we use to recognize true features of the world.
1.31 Epistemology is how we discover facts about the world.
1.32 If Epistemology is false then we have no knowledge, since justification is part of knowledge.
1.33 What it means to believe in Epistemic Realism is that there are epistemic truths.
2. There is nothing wrong with someone who has a principle that supports Moral Realism as basic.
2.1 [Continue to fill in! Need way more detail to make this plausible.]
3. Given the above, parity arguments between moral and epistemic realism systematically fail.
4. Given the above, an argument like Enoch's is basically irrelevant, and likely to fail.
5. There is a different kind of parity argument that often works, one that deals with moral beliefs that are at the same level as moral realism. This is where we should focus our attention, because this is the real threat to moral realism. But since much of epistemology is implicated, the task is easier.
1.1 A belief in Epistemic Realism cannot possibly be justified, and cannot possibly be unjustified.
1.11 That is, nothing could possibly count either for or against it.
1.12 Any justification of epistemic realism would beg the question against the nihilist, and any justification of epistemic nihilism would be self-defeating.
1.13 Since epistemology is a normative domain, Normative Realism follows from Epistemic Realism.
1.2 Our basic beliefs about what counts as justification, are like Epistemic Realism in this regard.
1.21 Anything may count as a basic belief
1.211 There's no significant difference if we talk about coherentism here. First, because the decision to believe in coherentism isn't basic--if we favor it over foundationalism, we favor it for some reason. Perhaps we don't take on beliefs as basic, though, and instead I should talk of taking coherent sets of beliefs as basic. Fine; that doesn't alter the problem significantly. Restated we would simply say "One must start with one set of beliefs, and there's no way to tell us which one to start with."
1.22 One might build an entire epistemology that looks entirely different from our own, and there would be nothing wrong with that. Nothing could possibly be wrong with that.
1.23 This includes an epistemology that allows one to believe in contradictions, or that doesn't require our beliefs to cohere.
1.24 If you do require your beliefs to cohere, then as you build up your epistemology various beliefs might come into tension. These pressures help form coherent belief systems. This is why we don't believe in ghosts, though we can imagine an epistemology that does require us to believe in ghosts.
1.241 There is legitimate epistemic disagreement, and it's a disagreement about what to take as basic.
1.3 Epistemology is what we use to recognize true features of the world.
1.31 Epistemology is how we discover facts about the world.
1.32 If Epistemology is false then we have no knowledge, since justification is part of knowledge.
1.33 What it means to believe in Epistemic Realism is that there are epistemic truths.
2. There is nothing wrong with someone who has a principle that supports Moral Realism as basic.
2.1 [Continue to fill in! Need way more detail to make this plausible.]
3. Given the above, parity arguments between moral and epistemic realism systematically fail.
4. Given the above, an argument like Enoch's is basically irrelevant, and likely to fail.
5. There is a different kind of parity argument that often works, one that deals with moral beliefs that are at the same level as moral realism. This is where we should focus our attention, because this is the real threat to moral realism. But since much of epistemology is implicated, the task is easier.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Ruminations on normative realism
One of the things that I came to appreciate over this project is that the real debate over moral realism is happening at a deeper level than I thought it was. I thought that debates about realism were primarily debates about ontology, but they're not. They're debates about frameworks and concepts primarily, and questions of ontology or metaphysics follow.
Everybody agrees that norms and values are an important part of human life and experience. The only question is what role do they play. Are they expressions of our deepest held plans and expectations? Or should we see them as law-making, ruling over ourselves and others?
The realist says that the best way to understand the role that norms play is most similar to the role that facts of any sort play. When someone accepts a norm, when they're doing is recognizing a feature of reality. The challenges to normative realism are challenges that this is not the right model for understanding moral realism. This challenge is fairly limited, when you think about it. A philosophical account that fails to explain the importance of morality in practice is worse off for it. The question is a fairly limited one: what is the proper model through which to understand our relationship with normativity.
This eases some of the pressure off both realism and anti-realism. On the one hand, anti-realism has nothing to do with being immoral, or saying that nothing matters (except in the technical sense, in which nothing objectively matters, or something like this). On the other hand, it eases some of the pressure off of realism, since realism should not be seen as the view that there are moral objects floating around in space that we access with our MoralVision that was given to us by God at Sinai. Or, at least, this is a point of contention. The anti-realist contends that the realist is committed to having an unexplainable MoralVision (just as bad as laser vision or the ability to fly). But the moral realist can defend his view by showing that the fact-model of understanding normativity doesn't need to be committed to all these things. It's primarily a question of how to model, justify and conceptualize human experience, and ontology and metaphysics only come in as a side-effect. But the goal is the former, not the latter.
So, can the moral realist meet this challenge? Well, can the epistemic realist meet this challenge? In order to really answer this one needs a theory of reasons and an epistemology of normative knowledge. But I think the point is that this is redundant; knowledge is normative. So you can't provide an argument against epitsemic realism, and it's worth giving an account of how that debate goes. I think that ultimately the only way to understand a challenge against normative realism generally is an urging to give up normativity. We lose our concepts, our ability to talk conceptually, when we give up normativity. So you need to keep norms, or you can't take anything seriously.
The question is not "What's out there?", at least not primarily. The question is how should we understand our lives, and I think that this requires norms.
In other words, maybe progress in this debate can be made by reflecting on how a discussion between a normative skeptic and a realist would go, and this can be aided by considering epistemic norms, because this is where things start to get crazy. Having reflected in this way, moral norms don't seem so bad. And this can be shown in the epistemic picture. Maybe. I'm losing the train of thought here. Lunch time, though.
Everybody agrees that norms and values are an important part of human life and experience. The only question is what role do they play. Are they expressions of our deepest held plans and expectations? Or should we see them as law-making, ruling over ourselves and others?
The realist says that the best way to understand the role that norms play is most similar to the role that facts of any sort play. When someone accepts a norm, when they're doing is recognizing a feature of reality. The challenges to normative realism are challenges that this is not the right model for understanding moral realism. This challenge is fairly limited, when you think about it. A philosophical account that fails to explain the importance of morality in practice is worse off for it. The question is a fairly limited one: what is the proper model through which to understand our relationship with normativity.
This eases some of the pressure off both realism and anti-realism. On the one hand, anti-realism has nothing to do with being immoral, or saying that nothing matters (except in the technical sense, in which nothing objectively matters, or something like this). On the other hand, it eases some of the pressure off of realism, since realism should not be seen as the view that there are moral objects floating around in space that we access with our MoralVision that was given to us by God at Sinai. Or, at least, this is a point of contention. The anti-realist contends that the realist is committed to having an unexplainable MoralVision (just as bad as laser vision or the ability to fly). But the moral realist can defend his view by showing that the fact-model of understanding normativity doesn't need to be committed to all these things. It's primarily a question of how to model, justify and conceptualize human experience, and ontology and metaphysics only come in as a side-effect. But the goal is the former, not the latter.
So, can the moral realist meet this challenge? Well, can the epistemic realist meet this challenge? In order to really answer this one needs a theory of reasons and an epistemology of normative knowledge. But I think the point is that this is redundant; knowledge is normative. So you can't provide an argument against epitsemic realism, and it's worth giving an account of how that debate goes. I think that ultimately the only way to understand a challenge against normative realism generally is an urging to give up normativity. We lose our concepts, our ability to talk conceptually, when we give up normativity. So you need to keep norms, or you can't take anything seriously.
The question is not "What's out there?", at least not primarily. The question is how should we understand our lives, and I think that this requires norms.
In other words, maybe progress in this debate can be made by reflecting on how a discussion between a normative skeptic and a realist would go, and this can be aided by considering epistemic norms, because this is where things start to get crazy. Having reflected in this way, moral norms don't seem so bad. And this can be shown in the epistemic picture. Maybe. I'm losing the train of thought here. Lunch time, though.
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