Download The Argument from Moral Experience

The Argument from Moral Experience
I. INTRODUCTION
It is often said that our moral experience, broadly construed to include our ways of
thinking and talking about morality, has a certain objective-seeming character to it. No matter
what turns out to be the case as far as metaethics is concerned, it is said, it seems as though
morality is a realm of objective facts or truths. Or at least, various features of our moral
experience are thought to presuppose that it is such a realm. So, for example, we often wonder
what morality requires, as if we take it that there are objectively correct answers to our moral
questions. Similarly, we sometimes worry about whether our moral beliefs are mistaken. But
only beliefs about factual matters can be mistaken, it is thought. Indeed, this talk of moral beliefs
is itself significant. Beliefs can be true or false in a way that mere attitudes and valuings cannot.
In these and other ways, it is claimed, we experience morality as if it is a realm of facts or truths,
or somehow presuppose that it is such a realm in our day-to-day lives.
There are two ways in which experience of this sort has been thought relevant to the
central questions of metaethics. The first involves the traditional idea that moral experience—
especially our dispositions to use the moral vocabulary in various ways—is among the best
evidence we have about what it is we are talking about when we talk moral talk. Before we get
too busy trying to answer our questions about the moral realm, we might think, it is important to
make sure that we understand which of many questions it is we are asking (or wish to ask). And
here our moral experience seems highly relevant.1
1
J. L. Mackie followed this strategy in, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (New York: Penguin Press, 1977), Ch. 1
(esp. pp. 30-35), and Ch. 2, pp. 50-63. Likewise, Michael Smith treats moral experience (“phenomenology”) as
relevant primarily to questions of conceptual analysis, envisioning the argument for moral realism as having two
steps: First, we argue (on the basis of moral phenomenology) for a certain analysis of moral concepts, and second,
we ask whether anything corresponding to these concepts actually exists. Nothing in this argument suggests that the
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This benign nod in the direction of conceptual analysis should not be, but often is,
confused with a second way, at least as common but far more ambitious than the first, in which
moral experience is thought relevant to metaethics. The second way involves an inference from
morality seeming a certain way (or our practices somehow presupposing it to be that way) to the
reasonableness of a presumption that it is that way. More specifically, it is widely thought that
the objective-seeming nature of our moral experience supports a presumption in favor of
objectivist theories (according to which morality is a realm of facts or truths) and against antiobjectivist theories such as Mackie’s error theory (according to which it is not). The
presumption can be defeated, it is claimed, only if arguments against objectivist theories prove
successful. I will call the argument that our moral experience supports objectivist theories, the
Argument from Moral Experience or the AME, for short.
So far, the AME is just the bare bones of an argument, of course: We experience morality
as a realm of fact and are therefore required, absent evidence to the contrary, to presume that it is
a realm of fact.2 But we have reason to seek a more careful and thorough formulation and
defense of the AME. In what respects (and to what extent) does morality seem to be a realm of
fact, and why does that support objectivist theories? A few philosophers have made limited
efforts at filling out the argument, but most have said very little. Yet the presumption the AME
is said to ground is almost universally accepted. Thus we need to examine the underpinnings of
phenomenology by itself can support moral realism. “Objectivity and Moral Realism: On the Significance of the
Phenomenology of Moral Experience,” in John Haldane and Crispin Wright, eds., Reality, Representation, and
Projection (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 235-55. Still, Smith does think the burden of proof falls
on the irrealist. See The Moral Problem (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1994), pp. 5-11, 30-31.
2
Some of those deploying the AME would deny that there are moral facts, but nevertheless hold that there are
correct answers to moral questions. See, for example, Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1966), pp. 35-37. In what follows, I ignore this (since it is irrelevant to the issue before
us) and for the most part speak simply of morality as a (possible) realm of fact.
2
the AME more seriously than has been done so far. In this paper, I argue that the AME does not
support objectivist moral theories after all, and therefore that we should be more open to antiobjectivist theories like Mackie’s.
II. THE PERVASIVENESS OF THE AME
In some form or other, the AME (or at least the presumption it is said to ground) has
played an important role in the debate over moral realism.3 Many of those accepting it consider
themselves to be moral realists and take the AME to support their realism.4 Thus, Jonathan
Dancy claims that a version of the AME is “the main argument for moral realism” and even
“perhaps the only argument for realism, remaining thoughts being used for defence/offence.”5
He describes “the simple form of the argument” as follows:
[W]e take moral value to be part of the fabric of the world; taking our
experience at face value, we judge it to be the experience of the moral
properties of actions and agents in the world. And if we are to work with
the presumption that the world is the way our experience represents it to
us as being, we should take it in the absence of contrary considerations
that actions and agents do have the sorts of moral properties we
experience in them. This is an argument about the nature of moral
experience, which moves from that nature to the probable nature of the
world.6
For convenience, I’ll omit “or at least the presumption” in what follows. It seems fair to assume that most of those
employing the presumption are at least implicitly relying on the AME. Otherwise they owe us an alternative defense
of the presumption, and it is hard to imagine what that could be.
3
I say, “consider themselves to be moral realists,” because it has become less and less obvious that we can find a
satisfactory account of what it is to be a moral realist. Among the many in this category who appear to accept some
version of the AME are: Paul Bloomfield, Moral Reality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); David Brink,
Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Jonathan Dancy,
“Two Conceptions of Moral Realism,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Sup. Vol. LX, 1986; Sabina
Lovibond, Realism and Imagination in Ethics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983); David
McNaughton, Moral Vision (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988, Ch. 3); Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1986, Ch. VIII); Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: a Defense (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003), esp. chs, 1 and 2; and David Wiggins, “Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life,”
reprinted in Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Essays on Moral Realism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988).
4
5
“Two Conceptions of Moral Realism,” pp. 172, 175.
6
Ibid., p. 172.
3
According to David Brink, the “presumptive case in favor of moral realism . . . shift[s]
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the burden of proof to the moral antirealist.” David McNaughton puts it even more forcefully:
Just as in a criminal trial, the presumption that the defendant is innocent
until he is proven guilty places the burden of proof on the prosecution so,
the realist claims, the burden of proof in this debate rests with the noncognitivist. The realist’s contention is that he has only to rebut the
arguments designed to persuade us that moral realism is philosophically
untenable in order to have made out his case.8
This assignment of the burden of proof helps to explain why so much of the debate over
moral realism has centered on arguments against it, and far less has focused on developing
arguments in its favor. If the negative arguments can be defeated, it is widely thought, then
moral realism wins by default.9
But those who view themselves as moral realists cannot appropriate the AME as
readily as they have often claimed, for it can be argued that our experience of morality
does not presuppose that moral realism is correct, but at most that morality is objective in
7
Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, p. 36. Brink introduces the presumption as follows:
We begin as (tacit) cognitivists and realists about ethics. . . . We are led to some form of
antirealism (if we are) only because we come to regard the moral realist’s commitments as
untenable, say, because of the apparently occult nature of moral facts or because of the
apparent lack of a well developed methodology in ethics. . . . I think there is more to this
dialectical picture than just a suggestive thumbnail sketch of the history of twentiethcentury metaethics. Moral Realism should be our metaethical starting point, and we
should give it up only if it does involve unacceptable metaphysical and epistemological
commitments. Pp. 23-24.
8
Moral Vision, pp. 40-41. See also Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere, p. 143:
Where does the burden of proof lie with respect to the possibility of objective values? . . .
[A] defeasible presumption that values need not be illusory is entirely reasonable until it
is shown not to be. Like the presumption that things exist in an external world, the
presumption that there are real values and reasons can be defeated in individual cases if a
purely subjective account of the appearances is more plausible.
“[I]t is very difficult to argue for such a possibility [as value realism] except by refuting certain arguments against
it.” Ibid., p 143.
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the sense (roughly) that there are moral facts, truths, properties, or correct answers to our
moral questions.10 All moral realists are objectivists, but many objectivists do not consider
themselves to be moral realists.11 For example, most Kantians and Kantian constructivists
would agree that a claim of objectivity is implicit in our moral thinking, and that this
supports objectivism about ethics. But they would not agree that ordinary moral
experience thereby supports moral realism. On their views, certain moral judgments are
practically correct even though moral properties are not real and the objective correctness
of moral judgments does not consist in correspondence between our statements and the
world.12
Even those in the broadly noncognitivist (or non-descriptivist13) camp, who hold
that moral utterances are (primarily) something other than straightforward assertions of
putative fact, often claim it an advantage that their theories can accommodate (or so they
maintain) the most important features of the claim to objectivity. For example, Simon
10
There is a sense in which certain views not ordinarily thought of as objectivist (such as moral relativism and
subjectivism) do acknowledge the existence of moral facts—facts about what is morally permissible, etc. around
here, for example. Most moral relativists think that facts about the morality are like facts about legality; they differ
from place to place and from one time to another. Some would even go so far as to say that the moral facts differ
from person to person. But they are facts all the same. In spite of this, views like these are inconsistent with a more
robustly objectivist strand in ordinary thought holding that there is a non-relative set of moral facts. For this reason I
will treat these views as anti-objectivist, reserving the term “objectivist” for views according to which there are
(only) non-relative moral facts, albeit facts having different applications for different circumstances.
11
Since my targets include both those who call themselves moral realists and others whose proper classification is
contestable, I needn’t enter into the debate over where the line should be drawn. Objectivists all hold views
according to which there are moral facts, truths, properties, or correctness. Whether or not a belief in any of these is
sufficient to make someone a moral realist is an issue on which I need not and do not take a position here. Likewise,
I offer no opinion concerning the relationships among moral facts, truths, properties, and correctness.
12
Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity, pp. 35-37, 44-48, 112. Brink is careful to distinguish features of our
moral experience he thinks count against non-cognitivism from those he thinks count against constructivism.
Some, such as Mark Timmons, prefer the etymologically more revealing “descriptivism/non-descriptivism” to the
more common “cognitivism/non-cognitivism”. For a defense of that preference, see Morality without Foundations
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 19.
13
5
Blackburn says that “the most forceful attack” faced by the moral projectivist “is that he
cannot accommodate the rich phenomena of moral life,” but goes on to argue that his
“quasi-realism” can indeed accommodate these phenomena.14 And “assertoric nondescriptivist” Mark Timmons says:
[O]ne may be guided in one’s metaethical investigation into moral
discourse by various assumptions deeply embedded in people’s ordinary
use of that discourse. The idea is to interpret the discourse in a manner
that comports with so-called commonsense assumptions of that discourse;
in other words, one wants to be able to accommodate those commonsense
assumptions. So there are features of our ordinary moral discourse – for
example, it is (or appears to be) fact-stating; we take there to be right
answers to many moral questions; and so forth – that should (if possible)
be accommodated by a plausible story about such discourse.15
In fact, Timmons only makes explicit what is almost universally presumed to be true, that a
metaethical theory is to be judged in part based on its ability to find room for the objectiveseeming features of our ordinary moral practices, beliefs, and ways of talking. And that is the
heart of the AME.
The near universal acceptance of the AME also helps to explain why the error theory has
had so few adherents in recent years. The error theory, made famous by Mackie, combines
cognitivism, the view that the central function of moral utterances is to make factual assertions,
with the view that all (positive) assertions of this sort are false.16 Thus it is a prime example of an
“Errors and the Phenomenology of Value,” in Essays in Quasi-Realism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993),
p. 158. For related views, see Timmons, Morality without Foundations; and Crispin Wright, Truth and Objectivity
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992). Allan Gibbard employs a number of ingenious
strategies for accommodating what he calls the “objective pretensions” of moral thought and language within his
non-cognitivist account. See Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), esp. chs. 813. For earlier non-cognitivist attempts to capture some of this seeming objectivity, see C. L. Stevenson, “The
Emotive Conception of Ethics and its Cognitive Implications,” in Facts and Values (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1963), pp. 55-70; and R. M. Hare, Moral Thinking (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).
14
15
Morality without Foundations, p. 11.
16
Ethics. More recent defenses of the error theory can be found in Richard Garner, Beyond Morality (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1994); Richard Joyce, The Myth of Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
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anti-objectivist theory. Insofar as our moral experience does have an objective-seeming
character, the error theory holds, it is misleading.
A weak, burden-shifting, presumption in favor of objectivist theories would not be
sufficient to explain why the error theory is held in such low regard, however. Instead, a much
more ambitious version of the AME seems to be in play, one which holds that there is an
overwhelming presumption against theories with seriously counterintuitive implications. The
error theory is thought to have implications of just that sort. If the error theory is true, for
example, then it is not morally wrong to torture infants for fun. This implication and others like
it are not merely taken to place the burden of proof on error theorists, but to make that burden
extremely strong.
Indeed, Mackie himself was in the grip of the AME. Mackie was convinced that
“ordinary moral judgments include a claim to objectivity, an assumption that there are objective
values.” This was the basis for the cognitivist component of his error theory.17 But he also
believed that in virtue of this claim, error theorists such as himself faced an uphill climb:
But since this is an error theory, since it goes against assumptions
ingrained in our thought and built into some of the ways in which language
is used, since it conflicts with what is sometimes called common sense, it
needs very solid support. It is not something we can accept lightly or
2001); Joshua Green, The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Truth About Morality and What To Do About It
(PhD Dissertation, Department of Philosophy, Princeton University, 2002, and forthcoming, revised and expanded,
The Penguin Press); and Hallvard Lillehammer, “Moral Error Theory,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
January, 2004, pp. 93-109. For a related view, see Stephen Schiffer, “Meaning and Value,” The Journal of
Philosophy, Vol. 87, no. 11, Nov., 1990, pp. 602-14.
Ethics, Page 35. In this way, Mackie’s theory does accommodate some objective-seeming features of moral
experience, but only in the sense, mentioned above, related to conceptual analysis. It holds that moral statements are
typically factual assertions. But it is not an objectivist theory, because it denies that there are moral facts. There is a
sense in which it holds that there are facts about morality, for example that killing toddlers for fun is neither wrong
nor right. Still these are not moral facts, since they presuppose that, in Mackie’s famous opening words, “There are
no objective values.” Ethics, p. 15.
17
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casually and then quietly pass on. If we are to adopt this view, we must
argue explicitly for it.18
The objective-seeming features of our moral experience seemed to Mackie to place a very heavy
burden of proof on the shoulders of those who, like him, rejected moral objectivism.
I agree with Mackie that moral objectivism should not be rejected lightly or casually. If
moral objectivism either reflects a commonsense commitment or is needed in order to validate
common sense, then it might be very disturbing to find out that it is wrong. But that it would be
disturbing to learn that common sense is misguided, in itself gives us no reason to believe that
common sense is correct. To see whether or not it is correct, we need to explore more serious
attempts to support the presumption.
In what follows, I ask whether our experience of morality does in fact support moral
objectivism. In assessing this question we need to break it down into two others: First, in what
sense is it true that we experience morality as a realm of objective fact? I take this to be largely
an empirical question, but argue that evidence we already have suggests that things are much
messier than objectivists often assume them to be. Second, given an answer to our first question,
what support if any does our moral experience (so understood) give to the claim that morality is
such a realm? I argue that even if moral experience were to presuppose or display morality as a
realm of objective fact, that would not in itself support objectivist approaches. The stakes are
high. If I am right that the playing field should be leveled, than we have much more reason than
has heretofore appeared to take anti-objectivist approaches like the error theory seriously.
18
Ibid.
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III. DO WE EXPERIENCE MORALITY AS A REALM OF FACT?
In what sense is it true that we experience morality as if it is a realm of objective facts or
truths? To begin, “our moral experience” is not as uniform as that expression suggests.19
Undoubtedly there are both cross-cultural and intra-cultural differences. Still, there are some
obvious commonalities for many of us, and perhaps we can base a reasonable gloss on “our
moral experience” on these.
Brink presents one of the fullest cases for the claim that our moral experience has an
objective-seeming character, pointing to several features, in particular:
—The syntactic form of moral judgments: Moral utterances are often in the declarative
mood. For example, “It is wrong to steal,” has the appearance of being a statement of fact.
—The content of certain moral judgments: The substantive content of a number of moral
judgments, widely thought to be plausible, seems to Brink to reflect a commitment to moral
objectivism. Thus, he argues, our beliefs that, “one should not be held responsible for actions
one could not have known were wrong,” that “goodness deserves reward,” and so on, contain
implicit references to moral properties, facts, or knowledge.
—Our attitudes and behaviors regarding morality: We often wonder what morality
requires, and when we do, “we often deliberate as if there is a correct answer to the question
before us.” We disagree with one another about moral questions, and when we do, we
sometimes reason with one another. We think that some people are mistaken about moral
questions and we recognize that we have been mistaken in the past and that we may be mistaken
19
Indeed, even what counts as experience will be disputed. Here I use the term very broadly.
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now. And just as we believe that we can be wrong, we believe that we can be right—that there
are answers to our moral questions, or facts about morality, in at least some cases, Brink claims.20
David McNaughton adds another element:
—The phenomenology of our moral experience, or the way our moral lives feel to us: We
experience morality as if it is in the world apart from our happening to encounter it, he claims,
and not as something which depends for its existence on our subjective inputs. Thus we seem to
have moral perceptions, which, although not strictly analogous to visual perceptions,
nevertheless are like them in that they seem to be of something outside of us. We seem, in some
sense, to see of immoral behavior that it is immoral. It is not as though we see certain conduct
(say, some boys throwing stones at an injured animal) and then overlay it with our judgment that
it is wrong. We see it as an immoral act.21 And, adds McNaughton, when we are moved to act
morally, it seems to be in virtue of our recognizing morality’s authority over us.22
Following Sturgeon, we might wish to add:
—The role of moral properties in putative explanations, as in “Hitler did what he did
because he was a bad man.”23
20
Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, pp. 25-29.
Moral Vision, pp. 19, 56. McNaughton thinks irrealists must imagine perception of value to be a “two-step
process,” wherein we first take in raw data about a situation and then apply our own attitudes. This picture of the
way we experience value, he says, is “breathtakingly counterintuitive”. Ibid., pp. 55-57. However a process to
which two factors contribute need neither have two steps nor feel as though it does. Two factors may exert their
influence at the same time, as when friction and gravity influence the trajectory of a projectile or when a person
wearing tinted lenses sees things as bearing that tint. Likewise, their influences may occur in succession, but too fast
to be perceived. Indeed, McNaughton himself believes that theory always influences observation, yet in no other
context does he worry that its doing so ought to make observation feel like a two-step process.
21
Moral Vision, p. 48. Similarly, Brink says, “We recognize the existence of moral requirements that constrain our
conduct in certain ways.” Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, p. 29. For another litany of objectiveseeming features, followed by an extended discussion of one of them, see Morality without Foundations, pp. 74-106.
22
Nicholas Sturgeon, “Moral Explanations,” in D. Copp and D. Zimmerman, eds., Morality, Reason and Truth
(Totowa: Rowman and Allanheld, 1984), pp. 49-78.
23
10
And finally, we can add another feature, perhaps implicit in much of the discussion
surrounding the AME:
—The strength and confidence with which we hold our moral beliefs. It is sometimes
said that people hold at least some of their moral beliefs as firmly as they hold any of their
beliefs. Furthermore, these beliefs are often thought to figure in valid—and for that matter
sound—inferences.
So far, we have what appears to be an impressive case in favor of the claim that we
experience morality as if it is objective. But we need to remember that few non-philosophers
have thought about the issue in terms that make explicit reference to moral objectivism, and it
seems illegitimate to attribute such a theory to most ordinary people. Still, people often seem to
recognize a distinction between realms of fact and other realms (such as fashion) in which
normative facts are not thought to play a central role. Perhaps people would be disposed on
reflection to place morality in the former category. Or it might be that our moral practice and
thought (including our beliefs about less abstract matters) in some more inchoate way presuppose
moral objectivism. For example, the claim that we can reason about moral questions can be true,
it might be claimed, only if morality is objective. Our moral beliefs and practices are
appropriate; the thought seems to be, if moral objectivism is correct, but not if it is incorrect.
This does not imply even an unconscious belief in moral objectivism, but rather a commitment of
some more indirect sort.
But is it clear that even this more limited commitment is being made? To begin, we
should note that this question is largely an empirical one. It is surprising how often philosophers
are willing to generalize about such matters based merely on their own experience and intuitions.
11
Moreover, the question is a complex and subtle one. The evidence may well take us in more than
one direction. People’s beliefs, especially their beliefs about philosophical matters, are often
intrapersonally inconsistent, and interpersonal and cross-cultural differences surely complicate
the picture even further. Even if we find substantial evidence of a commitment to (or
presupposition of) objectivity, it is likely that we will also find evidence against such a
commitment.
Indeed, certain features of common moral experience suggest that we experience morality
as something that is not objective.24 For example, just as we talk about moral beliefs, we often
talk about moral feelings and attitudes as well, and in other contexts these words typically signify
something other than beliefs. In fact, some people hold beliefs that seem quite incompatible with
moral objectivism, such as the belief that in ethics “it’s all relative,” or that what it is right for a
person to do depends on that person’s own decisions. We cannot dismiss such statements as the
products of confusion or carelessness merely because they appear to conflict with others that we
think are widely held. 25
The possibility of a non-uniform answer to our question about the nature of moral
experience is rarely taken seriously, however. Witness, for example, the recent debate between
Frank Jackson (“We have some kind of commitment to the idea that moral disagreements can be
Christopher Hookway expresses doubts about the objective-seeming nature of our moral experience in “Two
Conceptions of Moral Realism,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Sup. Vol. IX, 1986, p. 190. See also,
Shaun Nichols, Sentimental Rules: On the Natural Foundations of Moral Judgment (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2004), Ch. 8.
24
Amazingly, McNaughton himself begins his book with a discussion of “two contrasting feelings about our moral
life that all of us share to some extent. . . ,” one of which “appears to lead to the view that there is nothing
independent of our moral opinions that determines whether or not they are correct. . . .” Moral Vision, pp. 3-4. And
he concedes that there is some indeterminacy with respect to the commitments embedded in ordinary moral thought
and language: “It would be misleading to suggest that it is possible to determine just what the commitments of our
present thought and practice are. . . .” Moral Vision, pp. 40-41.
25
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resolved by critical reflection—which is why we bother to engage in moral debate. To that
extent objectivism is part of current folk morality,”26) and Stephen Stich and Jonathan Weinberg
(“[W]e find it simply astounding that Jackson attributes these ‘objectivist’ views to the ‘folk’.
Indeed, we can’t help wondering whether Jackson ever talks to undergraduates, since a
significant number of our undergraduates claim to be moral relativists.”27) The strength and
apparent polarization of this dispute should trouble us. We need to consider all features of our
moral experience, even when they appear to conflict, and to take more seriously the possibility
that a variety of incompatible sorts of commitment may be well represented in ordinary
thought—even, perhaps, in the thought of some individuals.
There are other problems for the claim that we experience morality as a realm of fact. In
particular, anti-objectivists claim that their theories can accommodate many of the features often
cited as pointing towards objectivism. Unless ordinary people have metaethical views
inconsistent with that claim, we need a reason for thinking that their experience presupposes
objectivity, and such a reason has not been supplied. Mackie, for example, thought it entirely
appropriate to reason about questions of value, even though he denied that values are objective.
Barring the implausible assumption that ordinary people think reasoning is only appropriate
when it comes to objective matters, ordinary moral reasoning could be of just the sort Mackie
endorses. Or it might fail to reflect either an objectivist or an anti-objectivist presupposition,
since few people have given the matter much thought. Likewise, since Mackie thought of
morality as something to be made and not discovered, it is not at all surprising to find him
26
From Metaphysics to Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p. 137.
“Jackson’s Empirical Assumptions,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LXII, No. 3, May, 2001,
p. 641.
27
13
writing about values in the declarative mood—as, for example, when he says, “The most
plausible absolute prohibitions must be violated where strict adherence to them would result in
disaster.”28 Similar things can be said about disagreement on questions of value, and even,
perhaps, about the doubting and wondering mentioned by Brink. Once again, unless we have
reason to believe that ordinary people are in the grip of a metaethics incompatible with Mackie’s,
proponents of the AME need to say more if they are to make persuasive the claim that ordinary
moral practices presuppose objectivity.
In light of these considerations, some of the evidence cited in favor of the objectivist
reading of ordinary moral experience—for example, the fact that we tend to express our moral
thoughts in the declarative mood—seems especially weak. After all, we talk about matters of
taste in the declarative mood (saying, for example, that chocolate is better than vanilla), but
ordinary people would find “gastronomic objectivism” about such matters utterly implausible.
We all agree that there are facts about what tastes good to a given person, but virtually no one
thinks that one flavor of ice cream is really better than another. Indeed, many would deny that
certain foods are objectively good in the sense that not liking them (or at least, failing to
recognize that they are better than others) would be a mistake. Similarly, the fact that we seem to
have perceptions of morality does not strongly support the claim that we experience it as
objective, since we seem to have perceptions of the (comparative) goodness or badness of some
Ethics, p. 168. Most of Mackie’s substantive moral discussions occur in Part II, “The Content of Ethics,” pp. 103200. Interestingly, Mackie sometimes says things the content of which is very similar to what Brink points to as
evidence that we experience morality as a realm of fact. Compare Brink’s, “[O]ne should not be held responsible for
actions one could not have known were wrong,” to Mackie’s, “If the seller [of adulterated milk] has not been
negligent at all and had taken every reasonable precaution, he cannot be morally blamed if some dirt has got into his
bottles in some way over which he had literally no control.” Ibid., p. 22.
28
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foods’ tastes but many would find odd the claim that we experience the taste of food as
objectively good or bad or that we typically presuppose objectivism about gastronomic value.29
Indeed, even if Mackie and other anti-objectivists are wrong about the reasonableness of
ordinary people’s practices and beliefs (on the assumption that there are no moral facts), it may
still be inappropriate to treat such people as presupposing moral objectivity, at least if by
“presuppose” we mean to imply a sensitivity to the rightness or wrongness of these metaethical
claims. The rightness or wrongness of those claims is unlikely to have had an impact on ordinary
people’s thought. Still, if anti-objectivists are wrong about these matters, perhaps there is
another sense in which ordinary people's views and practices could be said to presuppose some
form of moral objectivism: Their views would not be right and their practices would not make
sense unless objectivism were correct.30 Presupposition in this second sense might be relevant to
some (but not all) versions of the AME. But whether ordinary people's views and practices in
this second sense presuppose some form of moral objectivism is an important issue in the debate
over moral objectivity. It is inappropriate to make a burden-setting presumption in that very
debate rest on a particular resolution of a matter at issue between the two sides.
Undoubtedly, much more could be said about these questions.31 But it should already be
clear that “our moral experience” is much more varied and complex than proponents of the AME
For a sustained discussion of the parallels between gastronomic and moral realism, see my “Gastronomic
Realism—A Cautionary Tale," The Journal Of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, Vol. 23, No. 1, Spring
2003.
29
30
By analogy, if Kant's arguments were sound, then human experience of objects would presuppose, in this second
sense, that we have a priori concepts that correctly apply to things. The existence of these a priori concepts would
be a necessary condition of our experience of objects; however, the claim that they exist is one very few people
would even recognize to be true.
I discuss them at much greater length in “Moral Incoherentism: How to Pull a Metaphysical Rabbit out of a
Semantic Hat,” forthcoming in Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, ed., Moral Psychology, Vol. 2: The Cognitive Science of
Morality, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007).
31
15
have assumed it to be. Rather than continue to investigate these matters here, I shall set them
aside and ask whether experience of the sort gestured at above, even interpreted in a way
reasonably favorable to objectivists, would by itself support moral objectivism. The answer, I
will argue, is that it does not. What is needed to supplement it is the resolution of certain issues
already central to the debate over moral objectivity. That being so, a presumption in favor of
objectivist theories is not warranted.
IV. IS THE PRESUMPTION JUSTIFIED?
Does a presumption even require a justification? It is by now a philosophical
commonplace that we have to start somewhere. But we are not being asked to view the
objectivist presumption as itself a philosophical starting point. We argue for the presumption on
the basis of our moral experience, experience that is thought to be evidence for objectivism. That
being the case, it seems fair to ask how the evidentiary support is supposed to work. Of course,
we could make a further presumption here, that our moral experience is evidence for moral
objectivism (even if we can’t explain how this evidence is supposed to work). However, that
would seem rather ad hoc, to say the least. And, although those who appeal to moral experience
often seem to be taking the evidentiary link for granted, there are hints of various attempts to
support it.
How then do proponents of the AME think objective-seeming moral experience can
support the objectivist presumption? Based in part on the hints mentioned above we can
envision a number of possible arguments. In what follows, I consider what I take to be the four
most promising ones: A) inference to the best explanation, B) epistemic conservatism, C) the
Principle of Credulity, and D) the method of wide reflective equilibrium. In each case, I argue,
the strategy in question does not support a presumption in favor of objectivist moral theories. I
16
begin with the most familiar of these—the plausible-sounding claim that the best explanation for
our experiencing morality as a realm of fact involves the hypothesis that it is such a realm.
A. THE BEST EXPLANATION
The most prominent hint about how we might attempt to support the link between moral
experience and moral objectivity claims that moral objectivism allows us to best explain
something about that experience. Brink, for example, argues that we can most readily explain
our moral thought and behavior on the hypothesis that moral inquiry is directed at discovering
independently-holding moral facts:
. . . general considerations about the nature of inquiry and considerations about
moral inquiry in particular are most easily explained on the assumption that moral
inquiry is directed at discovering moral facts that obtain independently of our
moral beliefs and at arriving at evidence-independent true moral beliefs. I take
this to establish a presumptive case in favor of moral realism and to shift the
burden of proof to the moral antirealist.32
With apologies to Sidgwick, we might call Brink’s claim about the direction of moral inquiry the
thesis of unconscious moral objectivism.33
But even if the thesis were correct, that would not by itself establish a presumptive case
for moral objectivism since we would once again need to know why unconscious objectivism is
evidence for objectivism itself. The claim that moral inquiry is directed at discovering moral
facts, even if true, does not by itself support the claim that such facts exist, any more than the fact
that prayer is directed at God supports theism. The most obvious way to supplement it would be
with a second explanatory claim—that the best explanation for our being unconscious
32
Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, p. 36.
33
This label is not meant to convey that moral objectivism is believed at some unconscious level, but that moral
inquiry is directed at finding the moral facts, even if most people engaged in this inquiry have never thought about
the metaphysics of morals, consciously or unconsciously. As our discussion of the nature of moral experience
suggests, even this modest version of the thesis is controversial and very difficult to evaluate.
17
objectivists involves the hypothesis that objectivism is true. Brink may have something of this
sort in mind when he suggests that, “features of actual and possible moral inquiry are hard to
understand on antirealist assumptions and much easier to understand on realist assumptions.
Realism and realism alone,” he says, “provides a natural explanation or justification of the way
we do and can conduct ourselves in moral thought and inquiry.”34
This argument, however, seems to run together two distinct claims, one about explanation
and the other about justification. Indeed, conflating explanation and justification is fairly
common, and misleadingly helps to make the AME seem more convincing. It is often facilitated
by speaking of the need to “make sense of” our moral experience. For example, Dancy says that
“we abandon moral realism at the cost of making our moral experience unintelligible,” and that
we can “make satisfactory sense of our experience of the moral properties of objects” only on the
assumption that moral realism is correct. 35 But the fact that we need to understand our moral
experience does not support the claim that we need to show it to make sense. Thus it is important
to keep explanation and justification distinct.
The claim that our moral practices are most naturally justified on the hypothesis that
moral realism (or objectivism) is true is controversial. But even if correct, it could not support
moral realism (objectivism)—not, that is, without the added premise that our practices are
typically justified or something of that sort. Such a premise would be question-begging in this
context since anti-objectivists believe that insofar as these practices presuppose that morality is a
realm of fact they are not justified.
34
Ibid., p. 24.
“Two Conceptions of Moral Realism,” p. 173. See also Nagel: “My belief that the distinction between appearance
and reality applies here is based not on a metaphysical picture, but on the capacity of a realistic approach to make
sense of our thoughts,” The View from Nowhere, p. 146; McNaughton, Moral Vision, pp. 16 and 52; and Smith, The
35
18
What then of the claim that our moral practices can be explained more naturally or easily
on the assumption that moral realism is true? Here, Brink does not spell out exactly what he has
in mind. He seems to be assuming that what he calls a more natural or easier explanation is a
better explanation, and thus that we can best explain our moral practices, experiences, and beliefs
on the assumption that moral realism is true.
How would an argument to that effect proceed? One possibility (expressed in terms of
objectivism) is as follows: If we experience morality as objective, there must be some
explanation for that. The easier and more natural (and thus best) explanation is that morality is
objective and that we are familiar with it as such. More specifically, we think moral beliefs can
be mistaken or correct because they can be mistaken or correct and we can discover this; we
deliberate about the answers to our moral questions, because there are answers, and because
these answers can emerge upon careful deliberation. And so on.
But if we are to accept the objectivist’s explanation as best, we need more than the mere
claim that we experience morality as objective because it is objective. We need to know how its
being objective can explain our having the experiences we do.
36
Or at least we need some good
reason for thinking that its being objective would explain why our experience turns out the way it
does. But such a reason has not been given in the context of this argument, and we cannot
simply assume that one is available.37
Moral Problem, p. 11: “The task of the philosopher in meta-ethics is to make sense of ordinary practice,” and p. 5.
Timmons’s term, “accommodate,” is ambiguous in this way as well. See Morality without Foundations, p. 12.
36
Gilbert Harman makes a similar point in, “Is There a Single True Morality?” in Morality, Reason and Truth, pp.
33-34, and “Moral Explanations of Natural Facts--Can Moral Claims be Tested Against Moral Reality?” in The
Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XXIV, Supp., 1986, p. 62. See also, Blackburn, “Errors and the
Phenomenology of Value,” p. 154.
37
In fact, error theorists and other anti-objectivists often have their own theories about how to explain why our moral
experience turns out the way it does—theories that do not presuppose that there are moral facts. See Mackie, Ethics:
19
More importantly, whether moral facts help to explain our moral experience is a special
case of one of the central controversies in the metaethical literature: whether moral facts
38
(properties, etc.) figure in the best explanation of anything.
It is inappropriate to make a
presumption in favor of moral objectivity depend on the outcome of a major controversy in the
debate over whether morality is objective. If the explanatory claim were to succeed then we
would be beyond the point where we needed the presumption, and if it were to fail then the
presumption could not be grounded on its success.
It might be tempting to think that a demand that moral facts be shown to figure in best
explanations sets the bar too high for a mere presumption. After all, the presumption is only
meant to set the burden of proof, not to establish that moral objectivism is correct. Shouldn’t a
showing that a particular explanation is the most initially appealing be sufficient? Perhaps that is
what Brink has in mind when he says that realism provides an easier and more natural
explanation for our moral experience. The easier and more natural explanation, he could argue,
is good enough to support a presumption in realism’s favor. But it could be overridden if a better
explanation were ultimately to be discovered.
The problem with this line of thinking, however, is that whether or not realism provides
the most initially appealing explanation is itself in issue among realists, other objectivists (if
any), and anti-objectivists. First, it is not agreed that realism does provide an easier and more
natural explanation of our moral experience. And second, even assuming that easiness and
Inventing Right and Wrong, pp. 42-48. For a more recent, and much more detailed, suggestion along these lines, see
Richard Joyce, The Evolution of Morality, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006).
38
The locus classicus of this debate is Harman, The Nature of Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977),
Ch. 1; and Sturgeon, “Moral Explanations,” in Morality, Reason and Truth, pp. 49-78. For a recent attempt to put
that debate into perspective, see my, “Moral Explanations of Moral Beliefs, 70 Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, No. 1, Jan., 2005, pp. 193-208.
20
naturalness are explanatory virtues, they are certainly not the only such virtues. Anti-objectivists
are likely to point to others—such as parsimony or fit with the best current psychological or
evolutionary theory—as supporting their own explanations. Here again, the presumption cannot
be grounded in a claim that reflects an unresolved issue in the debate. If we wish to take it
seriously, then, we will have to look elsewhere for its support.
B. EPISTEMIC CONSERVATISM
Another possible ground for the presumption focuses mainly on one particular aspect of
our moral experience—our beliefs. Many philosophers have felt that, other things being equal,
we should favor the theory that requires us to give up as few of our current beliefs as possible.39
It is not clear, however, that the conservative strategy could work, even in its own terms. If it is
admitted that ordinary people are not explicit moral objectivists, then for them at least, a belief in
moral objectivism itself is not available for conserving. Still, while ordinary people probably do
not accept anything as complex and sophisticated as moral objectivism, they do have beliefs
moral objectivists might think cannot be true unless moral objectivism is true. And, it could be
argued, moral objectivism allows us to conserve more of these beliefs than do anti-objectivist
approaches such as the error theory.
For example, most people believe that our moral thinking is fallible. Objectivists often
allege that there is no room for this to be true within an anti-objectivist framework.40 If this
allegation were correct, then a principle of conservatism might have us grant some credibility to
This is (roughly) Quine’s formulation of the principle of conservatism. W. V. O. Quine, “Two Dogmas of
Empiricism,” in From a Logical Point of View, 2nd ed., (New York: Harper and Row, 1961). Other formulations of
the principle have been put forward, but the differences do not affect the argument given here.
40
There is a sense in which error theorists are the ultimate fallibilists, since they think that all (positive) moral claims
are false. But the sort of fallibility that seems to objectivists to be inconsistent with the error theory is less modest
than this. It is the view that moral judgments are sometimes correct, but can sometimes be incorrect. This sort of
fallibilism is inconsistent with anti-objectivism, since it presupposes that there is moral correctness.
39
21
moral objectivism, since objectivism would follow in some sense from things we already
believe—things the conservative approach tells us to treat as having some credibility. Likewise,
the objectivist could argue, our moral beliefs themselves cannot be correct unless objectivism is
correct. If we are to conserve these beliefs, they could say, we must accept some form of moral
objectivism.
But the principle of conservatism is quite controversial, and for good reason. It is
implausible that the mere fact that we already believe something should by itself give that belief
any credibility, quite apart from any other beliefs we might have about the reliability of the
processes that led to the formation of that initial belief. Suppose I believe that the next Lotto
number drawn will be even, but suppose further that I have no actual evidence for that
hypothesis. I should believe that the odds are 50/50, in spite of the fact that I find myself with
the ungrounded belief that they are not. The fact that I do believe that the number will be even
gives me no warrant whatsoever for believing it. Indeed, even if I knew that most ordinary
people had the same belief, this too would not by itself give me any evidence that the belief is
true.41
Conservatives might try to restrict the range of beliefs to be conserved, so as to avoid
counterexamples of this sort, for example, by pointing out that we cannot see any way that my
belief about the Lotto could be explanatorily connected to its own truth. In other cases, we can
see such a connection. For example, I believe that the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066,
though I cannot remember my evidence for this belief. Still, I have reason to maintain the belief
since it is likely that it was produced by a reliable process (such as my having read a history book
For a persuasive critique of the principle of conservatism see David Christensen, “Conservatism in Epistemology,”
Noûs, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1994, pp. 69-89. My treatment of epistemic conservatism has benefited greatly from that
paper and from discussions with its author.
41
22
several years ago). But such a reason is lacking in the case of my belief about the Lotto.
Perhaps, then, we should conserve only those beliefs for which a plausible credibility-imparting
explanatory story regarding their provenance can be told.
Anti-conservatives will no doubt argue that to adopt an approach like this is to abandon
conservatism entirely. But we need not enter into that debate here, for, returning to our previous
examples, the restricted conservative strategy would require us to find a credibility-imparting
explanation for the widespread belief in moral fallibility, or for our moral beliefs themselves—a
showing that these beliefs are plausibly explained by the states of affairs that make them true.
And that is just another instance of the question whether moral facts or properties figure in the
best explanation of anything. As we have just seen, resolving this question cannot be a
prerequisite for grounding an independent presumption in favor of moral objectivism.
In sum, it is hard to see how a principle of conservatism could support the claim that
moral experience of the sort we typically have supports a presumption in favor of objectivist
approaches to morality. It is of course possible that there are other ways of restricting the range
of beliefs to be conserved, in order to avoid the implausible implications of wholesale
conservatism. But if so, and if proponents of the AME wish to rely on them, they need to
produce them. And they must show us that these approaches are not themselves disguised
versions of the inference to the best explanation strategy.
C. THE PRINCIPLE OF CREDULITY
A third suggestion relies on another principle that it is sometimes thought we must accept
if we are to avoid falling into skepticism. This principle, often referred to as the Principle of
Credulity, holds that we are entitled to presume that things are pretty much as they seem to be,
23
unless there is substantial evidence to the contrary.
42
Just as the appearance of an external world
is sometimes thought to entitle us to presume that there is such a world, the appearance that there
are moral facts is thought to entitle us to believe that there are such facts.43
Even if we needed such a presumption in order to deflect external-world skepticism,
however, that would not by itself give us reason to adopt a similar, but distinct, presumption to
get us out of moral skepticism. Perhaps external-world skepticism is so implausible that we
would never be satisfied unless we were to deny it. But that would not establish that moral
skepticism involves a price high enough to make its avoidance imperative as well. (Indeed, most
anti-objectivists think that the price is nowhere near as high, if there is any price to be paid at all.)
Instead, the suggestion seems to be that a very general presumption that things are as they appear
(barring substantial evidence to the contrary) is necessary for avoiding external-world skepticism,
and that the very same presumption also has implications for the moral case.
Now, given the implausibility of attributing a belief in moral objectivism to most nonphilosophers, it would be inappropriate to claim that morality seems objective to the average
person. So here again we may feel compelled to rely on other pre-philosophical beliefs thought
by objectivists to be best accommodated within an objectivist framework. For example, since it
42
Paul Bloomfield reminded me of this version of the argument. McNaughton relies on it (in Moral Vision, pp.3941, et. seq.) and cites the discussion of the Principle in Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1979), p. 254-71. According to Swinburne, “[I]t is a principle of rationality that, (in the absence of
special considerations) if it seems (epistemically) to a subject that x is present, then probably x is present; what one
seems to perceive is probably so. How things seem to be is good grounds for a belief about how things are.” Those
who reject the principle, Swinburne says, “do not seem to me to be aware of the skeptical bog in which failure to
accept . . . [it] . . . will land them.” P. 254. A classic source of the Principle is Thomas Reid, “Essays on the
Intellectual Powers of Man,” in Inquiry and Essay, K. Lehrer and R. Beanblossom, eds. (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1975).
Even before the publication of Reid’s “Essays” in 1785, Richard Price offered something like this version of the
argument in 1758: ‘Is there nothing truly wrong in the . . . misery of an innocent being? – “It appears wrong to us.” –
And what reason can you have for doubting, whether it appears what it is?’ A Review of the Principle Questions in
Morals, D.D. Raphael, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), p. 45, quoted in Korsgaard, The Sources of
Normativity, p. 41.
43
24
seems as though we can reason about morality, we might be entitled to believe that we can
reason about it, in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary. If moral objectivism in
fact does best accommodate this belief and others like it, a reasonable extension of the strategy
might hold that we are entitled to accept it, at least provisionally. If morality is not a realm of
fact, the argument would go, then things are not as they appear.
Many people would find the kind of anti-skeptical strategy described above very
unappealing, however, even in the external world case. If there are arguments against skepticism
that are not based on the Principle, they would say, then we can examine them. But if they are
unsuccessful, then we should let the chips fall where they may. Unless the Principle has some
significant appeal beyond the avoidance of skepticism, they would argue, we are not entitled to
make it for that purpose alone. By itself, the Principle seems question-begging as a response to
skepticism.
In fact, the Principle of Credulity is implausible for precisely the reason conservatism
(likewise commonly defended as necessary for avoiding skepticism) is implausible. Seemings in
and of themselves give us no more warrant than mere believings. And just as the scope of
conservatism’s reach would have to be restricted in order to avoid counterexamples such as my
belief about the next Lotto number, so the Principle of Credulity would have to be restricted as
well. Suppose it seems to me that the next Lotto number drawn will be even. Unless there is a
plausible credibility-imparting explanation for things seeming to be this way—a showing that
this seeming is explanatorily related to the truth of the beliefs it generates—there is no reason to
treat it as providing any epistemic warrant whatsoever. And, as before, a showing of this sort is a
showing that moral facts figure in best explanations, a matter at issue between objectivists (some
25
of them, at least) and anti-objectivists. This cannot be a prerequisite for grounding an
independent presumption in favor of moral objectivism.
The anti-objectivist about morality can take no comfort in the defeat of a more general
anti-skeptical strategy, however. For, as moral realists often point out, moral skepticism is only
interesting if it is a distinctive form of skepticism. It would be no victory at all for the antiobjectivist to show that there are reasons for disbelieving in moral properties that are equally
good reasons for disbelieving in an external world. What is wanted is some justification for
treating moral properties differently. This suggests a familiar constraint for anti-objectivists:
They should not rely on arguments that provide as much support for external-world skepticism as
they do for moral skepticism. But there is an asymmetry here. For it would not be unreasonable
to hold that even if external-world skepticism turns out to be false there is still no good reason
for believing in moral facts. For example, even if we believed that the best explanation for the
appearance of an external world is that there is an external world, nothing about the moral case
would follow. Thus anti-objectivists can reject the unrestricted Principle of Credulity as a way
out of either sort of skepticism, remaining agnostic (at worst) about external-world skepticism.
It could be claimed that any route out of external-world skepticism would apply equally
well to moral skepticism. But that claim would need to be defended, either by a line of reasoning
that canvasses the full range of anti-skeptical arguments and shows why they all apply equally
well to moral skepticism, or one that in some other way shows why any such argument must
apply equally well to both forms of skepticism. And such a line of reasoning has not been
produced, nor does it seem obvious that it could be. In fact, the unrestricted Principle of
Credulity is not the only anti-skeptical strategy worth considering; other approaches do seem
available. A more modest presumption, for example that our senses and memory are reasonably
26
reliable, would still allow us to avoid external-world skepticism but it would not have the
implication that morality is as it appears to be, since the appearances relied upon in the moral
case do not result (primarily) from the operation of these faculties.
44
D. WIDE REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM
A final strategy, also closely related to conservatism, relies on a more general epistemic
principle having to do with considerations of theoretical coherence. It is hard to see how we
could avoid appealing to such considerations in evaluating theories. Just as it is often thought
that good moral thinking involves a search for what is typically called “wide reflective
equilibrium,” good reasoning in general seems to involve such a search as well. We appear to
have no choice but to start off with the beliefs we have, not all of which are coherent with one
another. Sometimes our commitment to one set of beliefs justifies us in abandoning others.
Sometimes we are justified in taking a claim more seriously than we would have been otherwise,
because of the way it fits with the beliefs we already have. Sometimes we take on new beliefs
(for example, as a result of observation) and these too need to be made to fit with the others, or
else some beliefs must again be abandoned. Our aim, it is often thought, should be to bring our
beliefs into a coherent balance after careful consideration—a wide reflective equilibrium. Such a
balance, it is often thought, provides the best sort of justification available to us.
How might the wide reflective equilibrium approach to justification favor a presumption
of moral objectivism, given the nature of our moral experience? Here again the focus is
primarily on our beliefs, and not on the whole of that experience. It might seem as though the
approach commits us to the view that even our prereflective beliefs about the nature of morality
44
For an anti-skeptical suggestion along these lines, see Roderick Chisholm, Theory of Knowledge, 2d ed.,
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1977).
27
(such as our belief in the possibility of moral reasoning) have some initial warrant, warrant they
carry with them into the balancing process. After all, it could be asked, how could beliefs that
have no warrant, even when made coherent upon reflection, produce beliefs that are warranted?
Such an argument would not rest on the false assumption that nothing can have properties
different than the properties of its parts. Instead it would be an application of what is sometimes
called the GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) principle. Unless the beliefs we start out with have
some warrant, the argument would go, they have nothing to pass on to the beliefs that emerge in
reflective equilibrium. Their initial warrant, on this view, might be outweighed, but all of our
initial beliefs—including those thought by objectivists to be most compatible with moral
objectivism—have some warrant since the beliefs that emerge in reflective equilibrium do have
warrant.
This argument that warranted beliefs cannot be produced out of beliefs that have no
warrant seems highly suspect, however. For it opens a back door to epistemic conservatism by
once again treating mere belief as sufficient for warrant. According to this approach, I should
again treat my belief that the next Lotto number picked will be even as having some warrant,
because acceptance of the wide reflective equilibrium strategy requires me to treat all of my
initial beliefs as having some warrant. Yet the claim that belief is sufficient for some degree of
warrant is just as implausible when put in terms of reflective equilibrium as it was when put in
terms of conservatism. Once again, the mere fact that many of us have beliefs about the
possibility of moral reasoning (and the like) does not in itself show those beliefs to have any
warrant.
28
Is there any other way in which reflective equilibrium might be brought in to support the
presumption? A hint may be found in Ronald Dworkin’s response to Crispin Wright’s claim that
realism about a particular domain has the burden of proof:
Unlike an argument in a court of law, however, the course of a philosophical
investigation is fixed not by any free-standing methodological postulates, like
Occam’s razor which Wright cites, but by how opinion stands when the
investigation begins. No skeptical argument can succeed, for anyone, unless it
brings him skeptical conviction, and that means that none of us can accept such an
argument unless we find its premises convincing even when we grasp their
skeptical import. We must find these premises more plausible than what they
require us to abandon.45
Expanding on Dworkin, we might argue as follows: Either our current moral beliefs (some of
them, at least) are justified (enough to be presumptively true) or they are not. If they are justified,
then moral objectivism must be justified as well, since the beliefs can’t be right unless
objectivism is right. If they are not justified, then once we have completed whatever degree of
reflection is needed to attain justification (or gotten close enough to ideal reflective equilibrium
for the relevant beliefs to be properly treated as somewhat warranted), our web of belief will
either contain those moral beliefs or not. If it doesn’t, that will be because there appeared to us to
be some reason to take them out. But that is just to say that our moral beliefs (and hence moral
objectivism) are presumptively true. We are entitled to accept our current moral beliefs, the
argument would go, unless there is some reason for rejecting them. Such a reason would indeed
Ronald Dworkin, “Objectivity and Truth: You’d better Believe It,” 25 Philosophy and Public Affairs, No. 2,
spring, 1996, p. 117 (emphasis added). Dworkin does indeed tie these considerations to the “overall search for
reflective equilibrium.” (P. 119) For an argument similar to Dworkin’s (which acknowledges that connection), see
Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), ch. 6, “Ethics,” esp. pp. 110-12, 115-18,
and 125.
45
29
defeat the presumption in favor of objectivist theories, but in its absence, the presumption
holds.46
Such an argument, however, would be in one sense too strong, and in another too weak.
If the argument were meant to show our initial moral beliefs to have some (defeasible) epistemic
warrant, it would fail. For it is true of all of our current beliefs (including, for that matter, many
of our students’ beliefs that some form of moral relativism or irrealism is correct) that we would
not abandon them, upon reflection, absent a (putative) reason for doing so. But that does not
mean that each of our beliefs is presumptively true. To think otherwise is, once again, to allow
conservatism to sneak in through the back door, since it is to hold that any belief is at least to
some degree warranted merely in virtue of being held.
If, on the other hand, the argument is not meant to show that these beliefs have warrant,
then it cannot show that the burden of proof is on the moral anti-objectivist, as proponents of the
AME claim. On this reading, what looked like an argument is merely an exercise in descriptive
sociology. The “presumption” it describes is merely a description of what many people happen
to believe (and perhaps a prediction that they are unlikely to give most of those beliefs up in
response to philosophical arguments). It would be an overstatement to call such beliefs
presumptively true. At best, we could say that they have been presumed to be true.
Indeed, Dworkin himself denies that the considerations he points to show where the
burden of proof lies or, “that our convictions are right just because we find them
irresistible, or that our inability to think anything else is a reason or ground or argument
46
Dworkin is extremely skeptical that so powerful a reason could be found in the case of our moral belief, taken as a
whole, although he acknowledges that some of our current moral beliefs will have to go. But for our purposes, the
question of whether the presumption could in fact be defeated is beside the point.
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supporting our judgment.”47 No doubt most people do have moral beliefs, and it would
take a reason (or at least a putative reason) for them to give these beliefs up. But if we
reject conservatism, we will hold that this alone does not give those beliefs any positive
epistemic status. Whatever else is needed in order for them to earn that status is needed by
both our current beliefs and any competitors. There is no asymmetry.
Still, while it is implausible to think that individual beliefs have warrant merely because
they are held, perhaps we have no alternative but to treat as warranted certain theories that unify
and accommodate those beliefs. Where else could we look for justification? If moral
objectivism does indeed unify and accommodate the various theoretical and substantive beliefs
about morality that in part constitute our moral experience, then perhaps we should provisionally
accept it.
Conservatism, however, is no more plausible at the level of theories than it is at the level
of individual beliefs. Suppose, to take a silly example, the theory that this bus has been
commandeered by Martians nicely unifies and accommodates my beliefs about each of the
various passengers, that they are non-human and that they are from a nearby planet, for example.
If the beliefs about the passengers are unwarranted (as they would be if their only warrant came
from my holding them), then a theory that unifies and accommodates them is (without more)
unwarranted as well.
But how, without lapsing into complete skepticism, can those employing the method of
wide reflective equilibrium avoid holding that sooner or later coherence with mere beliefs is
warrant conferring? Is there a way to look at the wide reflective equilibrium strategy that does
not have conservatism’s implausible implications? Perhaps. Our initial beliefs represent the
47
“Objectivity and Truth,” p. 118.
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beginning of our search for reflective equilibrium, not the end point. Often, these initial beliefs
will have to be modified or rejected if the entire corpus of our beliefs is to be made coherent.
Thus arguably we should treat only those beliefs that are able to survive significant reflection as
having some degree of warrant, and not those that merely appeared plausible before we began to
think things through more carefully. If this is correct, then acceptance of the wide reflective
equilibrium framework would not automatically allow us to treat an initially appealing theoretical
gloss on our moral beliefs as warranted. The claim that it is warranted would depend, on this
approach, on whether it could survive the minimally necessary process of reflection.
How then should we envision this process of reflection? One answer, similar to a
proposal gestured at above, begins with the claim that we have justified beliefs about the
reliability of the processes that led to our beliefs. These beliefs about reliability might be thought
to have a bearing on the question of how much credibility the initial beliefs should be given. For
example, if a person’s commitment to the existence of angels stems entirely from dogmatically
accepted religious beliefs he now sees reason to abandon, he may also have reason to avoid
giving his belief in angels any weight in reflective equilibrium. In contrast, arguably, we should
see our perceptual beliefs as warranted when they are made under normal circumstances, since
we are justified in believing that perception is normally a reliable belief producer. If this is
correct, then the reflective equilibrium strategy cannot yet support moral objectivism, since it
would be question-begging to assume that our beliefs about morality (and our moral beliefs
themselves) are the products of similarly reliable mechanisms.
In any case, this approach to reflective equilibrium seems problematic, since it is not
immediately clear how our beliefs about reliability themselves get justified. An alternative might
be to look for justification in the way our beliefs fit into our larger explanatory picture. Thus, we
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might treat as warranted only those beliefs whose existence can plausibly be explained in a way
that supports the claim that they are true. After all, finding a plausible explanatory theory is often
thought to be the point of reflective equilibrium. On such a view, the coherence of a set of
beliefs is constituted in part by the beliefs’ fit into such an explanatory picture.48
How would the beliefs we have been discussing fare under this proposal? My belief that
the next Lotto number drawn will be even cannot plausibly be thought to be best explained on the
hypothesis that the number will in fact be even, nor can it be supported by any other aspect of a
plausible explanation for my coming to have it. The same is true of my beliefs about my fellow
bus passengers, and the theory that unifies and accommodates these beliefs. What about the
everyday beliefs pointed to by those employing the AME? These would give moral objectivism
some measure of warrant only if the best explanation for our holding them makes it more
probable that moral objectivism is true. But once again whether such an explanation is available
is merely a special case of the question of whether moral facts figure in the best explanation of
anything, a question not appropriately considered in this context.
An analogy will make clearer why this version of the reflective equilibrium strategy
cannot support a presumption of the sort envisioned by those employing the AME. Suppose that
Nigel and Gideon are discussing whether it makes sense to believe that a certain type of dinosaur
once existed, in view of the fact that they and many others have seen what they at the time
believed to be fossilized tracks in the desert. Suppose further that Nigel thinks the best
explanation for these beliefs involves the supposition that these dinosaurs existed, but that
On most views of this sort, the justification would not depend upon anyone’s having actually gone through such a
process, but on the availability of an explanatory picture of the kind gestured at here. Thus we might not currently be
in a position to know (or be justified in believing) that certain of our beliefs are justified, even if they are. If we are
not in such a position, then we should not presume that those beliefs are justified until our explanatory theory
improves.
48
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Gideon is not confident that this is so. Gideon has just read that there is a debate among
paleontologists about this very question, some thinking that what appear to be dinosaur tracks are
in fact the odd-looking products of wind and water erosion. Now suppose Nigel says, “Well, it
looks as though it’s not going to be easy to agree on an explanation for people’s belief that they
have seen dinosaur tracks. Thus, we should put that issue aside for now. Nevertheless, it is still
true that many people find themselves believing that they have seen dinosaur tracks. That is
sufficient to establish a presumption that these dinosaurs existed, and thus we should accept that
they existed, unless further reflection or evidence convinces us that we are wrong.”
Gideon should not agree here. He should say, “The hypothesis that these creatures once
existed might have appeared to have some warrant. But the claim that it has this warrant is
completely undermined by the intractability of the argument over whether the best explanation
for the observers’ beliefs would support the hypothesis that the creatures did in fact exist. You
can’t get around the explanatory issue simply by labeling an initial hypothesis a presumption.”
If, as seems plausible, Gideon is right, then once again we are forced to confront the issue of
explanation—in particular, whether the hypothesis that these dinosaurs existed is supported by
the best explanation of a certain belief many observers have. We are not yet in a position to
make a presumption that carries any justificatory weight of its own. The same is true in the
moral case.
Presumably, other ways of looking at the wide reflective equilibrium strategy are
available, and perhaps some of them can also avoid the implausible implications of conservatism,
either at the level of beliefs or at the level of theories that purport to accommodate those beliefs.
But however we interpret it, the wide reflective equilibrium strategy should not treat our
beliefs—and a fortiori should not treat controversial theories that attempt to explain those
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beliefs—as having warrant simply because the beliefs are held. Instead the strategy should hold
that the reflective process itself (or at least, the availability of such a process) is what confers
warrant on some, but only some, of those initial beliefs. Whether it does so in the case under
consideration here is a question that has not yet been answered.
V. CONCLUSION
The AME has exerted an enormous influence on the debate between moral objectivists
and anti-objectivists such as error theorists. Yet its underpinnings have never been carefully
examined. If I am right, moral objectivists have unfairly attempted to shift the burden of proof to
anti-objectivists, and anti-objectivists like Mackie have been all too quick to accept this burden.
Until someone does a better job of defending the AME, we should treat the two approaches,
moral objectivism and anti-objectivism, as starting on an even footing.49
Don Loeb
The University of Vermont
49
I wrote a draft of this paper years ago, under a grant from The University of Vermont, for which I am very
grateful. Among the people who have helped me in preparing it are Paul Bloomfield, Sin yee Chan, David
Christensen, Tyler Doggett, Hilary Kornblith, Arthur Kuflik, Derk Pereboom, William Mann, Mark Moyer, Seth
Shabo, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. As always, my wife, Barbara Rachelson, read many drafts and provided
hours of helpful consultation on nearly every aspect of the paper. I am extremely grateful to all of these people.
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