Abstract
In a recent paper Terence Cuneo and Russ Shafer-Landau argue that there are moral conceptual truths that are substantive in content, what they called “moral fixed points.” I argue that insofar as we have some reason to postulate moral fixed points, we have equal reason to postulate epistemic fixed points (e.g. the factivity condition). To this effect, I show that the two basic reasons Cuneo and Shafer-Landau offer in support of moral fixed points naturally carry over to epistemic fixed points. In particular, epistemic fixed points exhibit the four “marks” of conceptual truths that they identify and can be utilised to address important challenges to epistemic realism. I conclude that insofar as we have some reason to postulate moral fixed points, we have equal reason to postulate epistemic fixed points.
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Notes
- 1.
See Ingram (2015, forthcoming), Killoren (2016), Evers and Streumer (2016), Copp (2018) for critical reactions and Kyriacou (n.d, forthcoming-b, 2017b) for a sympathiser to the moral fixed points proposal.
- 2.
Of note, is that Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014, 410–11) distinguish between conceptual truths and analytic truths. Conceptual truths are propositions that hold in virtue of the essences of the constituent concepts and need not have been hitherto discovered and linguistically expressed. Analytic truths are sentences that hold in virtue of the meaning of constituent words and have been hitherto discovered and linguistically expressed.
- 3.
The view of Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014) has affinities with the moderate rationalist theory of a priori justification that Bonjour (1997) has defended. Compare Bonjour: “The sentence in question is necessarily true because it expresses a necessary relation between certain properties, and it is of course in virtue of its meaning that it does this” (1997, 102). Another view of a priori moral justification can be found in Huemer (2005, chap. 5) and Swinburne (2015). For a proponent of both a priori justification and a priori moral justification, see Peacocke (2003, chaps. 6 and 7). For a general defense of a priori intuition, see Bealer (1998) and for a priori moral intuition, Audi (2015).
- 4.
See Ingram (2015) for an argument that the conceptual deficiency charge backfires and defeats the moral fixed points proposal and Kyriacou (2017b) for a reply on behalf of the moral fixed points proposal. Ingram (forthcoming) offers a rejoinder to Kyriacou (2017b). For Kyriacou’s re-reply see n.d.
- 5.
Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014, 404) make clear that moral fixed points are truths that apply to rational beings like us, in worlds like us. They are not supposed to be absolute truths in any unrestricted sense.
- 6.
This is not to suggest that we could not in principle explain these marks in a way more friendly to the antirealist. See Evers and Streumer (2016, 4 fn. 9) for how such an explanation could go.
- 7.
Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014, 403) distinguish between two non-naturalist stories that could metaphysically invest the moral fixed points proposal: minimal and robust moral non-naturalism. Minimal moral non-naturalism asserts that “there are nonnatural moral truths, but there are no nonnatural moral properties or facts. All moral properties and facts are natural.” Robust moral non-naturalism is ontologically more permissive and asserts that “there are both nonnatural moral truths and nonnatural moral properties and facts.” They suggest that the moral fixed points proposal is compatible with both positions and that, although they “want to remain officially neutral on which of these views is true,” they favour a view of the robust style (at least something “in the spirit …if perhaps not the letter” of such a view, as they put it). As nothing of substance hinges on the distinction in this paper, I remain neutral in regard to which of the two is the more promising.
- 8.
Moral (and other) fixed points need not be very obvious at first sight and might bear different degrees of self-evidence (cf. Cuneo and Shafer-Landau 2014, 413–14). Compare , for instance, the quite evident “knowledge requires truth” with Gettier’s less evident lesson, namely, “justified true belief is insufficient for knowledge.”
- 9.
See Juhl and Loomis (2009) for a round introduction to the Carnap-Quine debate on analyticity as well as the debate that ensued after Quine’s seminal work. Traditional conceptual analysis seems also to be making a comeback in recent debates, see Jackson (1998), Juhl and Loomis (2009) and McGinn (2012) for some defences.
- 10.
Kyriacou (2017b, forthcoming-b, n.d.) distinguishes between conceptual and meta-conceptual deficiency and submits that error theorists are likely to be only meta-conceptually deficient, if deficient at all. For simplicity’s sake, I will ignore the distinction for the purposes of this paper.
- 11.
For some discussion of the supervenience challenge to moral non-naturalism, see Ridge (2014, sec. 6).
- 12.
For one thing, as Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014, 429 fn. 66) note , Wielenberg (2014, chap. 3) has stressed that the Modest Humean Thesis appears self-defeating because it posits itself a brute connection between the discontinuous properties “entailing a brute necessary connection between discontinuous properties” and “being unreasonable to believe.”
- 13.
While formulations of the moral supervenience challenge are often phrased in terms of explaining the connection between moral and natural properties, the moral fixed points proposal explains moral supervenience in terms of moral and natural concepts-essences. As far as I can see, nothing substantial hinges on this difference because the supervenience challenge calls for an explanation of the metaphysical “bridging” between the moral and the natural domain, be it in terms of properties or essences.
- 14.
- 15.
Compare Stanley: “The factivity of knowledge is not just a truth about knowledge, but a necessary truth about knowledge. That is, not only is it the case that x’s knowing that p entails that p, but it is necessarily true that if someone knows that p, then p.” (2005, 112) Hazlett (2010) has argued that the ordinary concept of knowledge is non-factive, although he concedes that epistemologists are probably right that the concept of knowledge is factive. For a rejoinder that defends that even the ordinary concept of knowledge is factive, see Hannon (2013). At any rate, the factivity condition is here intended to apply to the concept of knowledge.
- 16.
See Schaffer (2009, 375) for the intuitive grounding of truth in fact.
- 17.
For an appeal to an indispensability argument from practical deliberation for the existence of moral facts, see Enoch (2011, chap. 3). In essence, we present a parallel indispensability argument from theoretical deliberation-reasoning for the existence of epistemic facts. Interestingly, if knowledge is also the norm for practical reasoning, as some think (e.g. Hawthorne 2004; Stanley 2005; Williamson 2000), then the indispensability argument from theoretical deliberation for the existence of epistemic facts is by extension an indispensability argument from practical deliberation.
- 18.
- 19.
We should distinguish between logical self-defeat that implies contradiction and rebutting (e.g. the self-referential semantic paradoxes) and epistemic self-defeat that implies undercutting defeat (e.g. Descartes’ cogito). Both sorts of self-defeat provide us with good epistemic reason to reject propositions or arguments. See Fumerton (1995, 43–53) for some discussion of the distinction between epistemic and logical self-defeat.
- 20.
See Rowland (2013) for a similar argument in a different dialectical context.
- 21.
For the idea that there might be epistemic facts that are indispensable for epistemic reasoning , see Cuneo (2007, 229).
- 22.
Or, maybe, we can and we should? Besides, why not be epistemic fictionalists and proceed “as if” there are such indispensable fixed points while accept that these are only epistemically useful fiction? Epistemic fictionalism raises delicate issues that we cannot pursue here but one concern for the fictionalist proposal is that normative, epistemic authority does not seem to be merely fictional. But if there is epistemic authority there must also be epistemic facts in virtue of which the authority exists and binds us. Otherwise, epistemology turns out to be relative to one’s fictionalist commitments (and these might differ widely) and is reduced to schmepistemology (see Kyriacou 2016a for some discussion). Unfortunately, we have to cut off the topic here. For some critical discussion of epistemic fictionalism see Cuneo (2007, chap. 4).
- 23.
The epistemology of disagreement literature has recently paid attention to the possible skeptical implications of the “equal weight view” about peer disagreement. See Matheson and Carey (2013) for some discussion. For some more work on epistemology of disagreement see the essays in Feldman and Warfield (2010). Also, see Ahlstrom-Vij (forthcoming, sec. 5) for an appeal to disagreement about epistemic normativity in support of epistemic anti-realism.
- 24.
For the moral analogue of this argument against evolutionary genealogical debunking , see Wielenberg (2014, chap. 4).
- 25.
- 26.
The obvious response that epistemic beliefs are non-normative is not easy to come by. See Heathwood (2009) for an argument that epistemic reasonability beliefs are non-normative and Cuneo and Kyriacou (forthcoming) and Kyriacou (forthcoming-a, sec. 4) for a response. For a rejoinder, see Heathwood (2018 in Chap. 3).
- 27.
- 28.
For versions of this problem see the discussion in Bradie (1990, 35–36), Kahane (2011), Shafer-Landau (2012, 35), Woods (2018, sec. 4). Shafer-Landau (2012), in particular , makes explicit that evolutionary debunking arguments about a philosophical domain quickly over-generalise to domains that seem beyond serious epistemological doubt and, therefore, we need to disambiguate the metaepistemic norm in virtue of which debunking arguments run and confer unjustifiedness.
- 29.
- 30.
I would like to thank David Enoch for helpful comments.
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Kyriacou, C. (2018). From Moral Fixed Points to Epistemic Fixed Points. In: Kyriacou, C., McKenna, R. (eds) Metaepistemology. Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93369-6_4
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