Truth in
Ethics and Epistemology:
A Defense of Normative Realism
by
Supervised by
Professor Earl Conee and
Professor Richard Feldman
Department of Philosophy
The College
Arts and Sciences
2004
Abstract
In
this work I defend moral realism, the thesis that there are objective moral
truths, by defending epistemic realism.
Epistemic realism is the thesis that epistemic judgments, e.g., judgments that
some belief is epistemically reasonable,
or justified, or known or should be held,
are sometimes true and made true by stance-independent epistemic facts and
properties.
One might think that epistemic realism needs no
defense because it is obviously true and nearly universally accepted. But there
are influential arguments against moral realism, which is analogous to
epistemic realism: moral realists think that moral judgments, e.g., that
something is morally good, or ought to be done, are sometimes true
because there are stance-independent moral facts and properties. Moral
irrealists deny this for a variety of semantic, metaphysical, psychological and
epistemological reasons. They argue that moral judgments are neither true nor
false since they are non-cognitive expressions of emotion or commands, or are
never true since they fail to refer, or that their truth is relative.
Drawing on the moral irrealisms of Ayer, Stevenson,
Hare, Mackie, Harman, and more recent thinkers, I construct parallel arguments
for epistemic irrealisms. On these views, epistemic judgments are also merely
expressive, a kind of command, always false, or relativistic in truth
conditions: even epistemic platitudes like justified beliefs are better than unjustified beliefs and ideally,
ones beliefs ought to be consistent
are understood not as epistemic propositions that might be believed (much less
believed truly), or as attempts to
accurately represent epistemic facts, or as attributions of epistemic
properties.
The implications of these claims are highly at odds
with common epistemological assumptions, even those that moral irrealists tend
to accept. I argue that these implications are rationally unacceptable and
that, therefore, the premises that support them should be rejected. Since these
premises are those given in defense of moral irrealisms, I thereby defend both
moral and epistemic realism. Thus, I argue that oughts, shoulds
and other evaluative judgments are equally legitimate in both ethics and
epistemology.
My complete dissertation is available for download as a PDF file here; below are individual chapters in HTML.
Chapter 1:
Moral & Epistemic Realisms
....1
1.1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1
1.2. Epistemic Realism: A Sketch .2
1.3. Characterizing Moral Realisms & Irrealisms .. 11
1.4. The Meaning and use of Moral Terms . . 14
1.5. Epistemic Realisms and Irrealisms 22
1.6. Moral and Epistemic Judgments: Some Similarities 25
1.7. Conclusion. .. 32
Chapter 2:
Defending Epistemic Deontologies
...33
2.1. Introduction 33
2.2. Basic Objections to the Deontic Conception ..... 34
2.3. The Many Epistemic Deontologies . . .. 36
2.3.1. Evaluating Epistemic Deontologies . 38
2.3.2. Justification, Praise and Blame 40
2.3.3. Epistemic Duties and Obligations . ... 43
2.3.4. An Objection from Doxastic Voluntarism ... 47
2.3.5. Deontological Theories of Epistemic Justification ...... 50
2.4. Deontology, Internalism and Externalism . 54
2.5. Conclusion. . ... 58
Chapter 3:
Ayer and Stevensons Ethical and Epistemological Emotivisms
... 60
[Note: this chapter
is an improved version of this article: "Ayer
and Stevenson's Epistemological Emotivism," Croatian Journal of Philosophy,
Vol. IV, No. 10, April, 2004, pp. 61-81.
3.1. Introduction 60
3.2. Ayer on Ethical Naturalisms and Non-Naturalisms . . 62
3.3. Ayers Ethical Emotivism . .... 65
3.3.1. Ayer, Positive and Epistemology ... .. 66
3.3.2. Against Naturalistic Epistemological Definitions ... . 68
3.3.3. Against Non-Naturalistic Epistemological Definitions ... . 69
3.4. Ayers Epistemic Emotivism ... . 71
3.4.1. Epistemic Emotivism Undercuts Ethical Emotivism ... 73
3.4.2. Criticisms of and Concessions to Arguments for Epistemic Irrealism . 81
3.4.3. Non-Positivistic-Based Epistemic Emotivism ... .. 90
3.4.4. Conclusions on Ayers Epistemic Emotivism... 92
3.4.5. Some Objections and Replies ... 93
3.5. C.L. Stevensons Ethical and Epistemic Emotivisms ... . 98
3.6. Conclusion: Brief Remarks on Gibbard ... .. 103
Chapter 4:
Hares Epistemological Universal
Prescriptivism
..
..105
4.1. Introduction .. 105
4.2. Ethical and Epistemological Theory . 107
4.2.1. Against Ethical and Epistemological Naturalisms ... . 110
4.2.2. Against Ethical and Epistemological Intuitionisms ...... 118
4.2.3. Against Ethical and Epistemological Emotivisms 123
4.3. Rational Universal Prescriptivism? ............................................................................ 125
4.4. Normative Ethics and
Normative Epistemology
133
4.5. Conclusion . 135
Chapter 5:
Mackies Epistemic Nihilism
.
136
5.1. Introduction
.... 136
5.2. Mackies Conception of Moral Properties .. 138
5.2.1. Responding to Mackies Conception of Moral Properties ... 141
5.2.2. Epistemic Properties: Objective and Motivating? .... 143
5.3. From Disagreement to Nihilism . 149
5.3.1. A Case for Epistemic Disagreements ... 154
5.3.2. Responding to the Case for Epistemic Disagreements . 157
5.3.3. Explaining Moral Disagreements . 164
5.3.4. Explaining Epistemic Disagreements ... 168
5.4. Accepting and Rejecting Epistemic Nihilism 170
5.5. Mackies other Arguments for Moral Nihilism . 176
5.5. Conclusion ............. 184
Chapter 6:
Harmans Epistemic Relativism
....... 186
6.1. Introduction .... 186
6.2. A Moral Relativism Consistent with Moral Realism . 187
6.3. A Moral Relativism Inconsistent with Moral Realism .. 189
6.4. From Disagreement to Moral & Epistemic Relativisms 196
6.4.1. Arguments for Moral Relativism . 199
6.4.2. Arguments for Epistemic Relativism ... 204
6.4.3. Harman on Epistemic,
or Evidential, Relativism
. 209
6.5. Moral and Epistemic Explanations 212
6.6. Conclusion 222
Chapter 7:
Contemporary Moral and
Epistemic Irrealisms
............. 224
7.1. Introduction ....... 224
7.2. Summary of the Arguments Classical Moral Irrealism ...................... 226
7.3. Shafer-Landau on Some Contemporary Moral Irrealisms ... ........... 231
7.4. Gibbards Epistemic and Moral Norm Expressivism .. ... ........................ 234
7.5. Fields Epistemic and Moral Evalutionism or Non-Factualism ................................. 242
7.6. Conclusion ... ... 247