Sharon Street claims that quasi-realism is no better off epistemologically than something she calls realism. Her strategy is as follows. On p. 9 she has two protagonists, Ann and Ben, who have different moral standards, but who both say Ôthere are independent normative truthsÕ. It is the fact that they agree on something that is the lynchpin of her assault. Once she has Ôindependence as suchÕ as a piece of realism that quasi-realism must imitate she can then wheel up Darwinian considerations, and argue that epistemological scepticism affects quasi just as much as real realism.
Street
quotes and endorses GibbardÕs account of what Benn
and Ann agree upon. I shall put it not in the terms Gibbard uses (of plans for contingencies in which one
plans something) but in my own terms, which I regard as equivalent, although I
find it easier to work with them in some respects. Consider then the schema Ôp
would have been wrong even had I/my group not believed it to be wrongÕ.
Each assents to there being instances of this schema. So each believes in what
Street calls Ôindependence as suchÕ. If you want to know how they might
each believe that there are instances of this schema, then we go back to
examples like kicking dogs for fun. Naturally Ben and Ann may have different
things in mind. Maybe Ben thinks that it would still have been wrong to kick
dogs, even had we thought it was right, while Ann thinks it would still have
been OK to kick dogs even if we had thought it was wrong. But that doesnÕt
prevent there being a commonality when we quantify, as there is in all such
cases. Two deflationists can each believe that John said something true at
breakfast, although they have different substitutions in mind for ÔJohn said
that p & pÕ —
which is what the deflationist will offer as the fundamental schema
enabling us to understand this use of the notion of truth.
So far so good. Street then reminds us of our evolved
natures. She is certainly right that any sensible theorist, quasi-realist or
not, must recognize that evolutionary forces will have shaped and directed our
sentiments, including our moral sentiments. Hume himself said that:
All the sentiments of the human
mind, gratitude, resentment, love, friendship, approbation, blame, pity,
emulation, envy, have a plain reference to the state and situation of man, and
are calculated for preserving the existence and promoting the activity of such
a being in such circumstances. (Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
(1779), part 3, ¤13)
So it
is not as if we are unfamiliar with the thought that various contingencies are
responsible for our moral sentiments as well.
But
Street takes this combination to introduce a problem. She takes the account of
the commonality between Ben and Ann to license what she calls Ôthe independent
normative truth as suchÕ. And, she
continues:
The following possibilities are
exhaustive: either the evolutionary influence tended to push our normative judgments
toward the independent normative truth, or else it tended to push them away
from or in ways that bear no relation to that truth
This
is the basis from which she argues that quasi-realism is no better off than
realism full and proper when it comes to moral epistemology. For without some
story about how we ÔtrackÕ independent normative truth as such, the
quasi-realist, just like the genuine realist, will be left with no defenses
against either the second or third alternative, and scepticism
assails him: Ôthe quasi-realist is thus forced to conclude that due to
evolutionary influences, we are in all likelihood hopeless at recognizing the
independent normative truthÕ
The
structure of this argument is certainly bold. It is boldly reminiscent of the more
ambitious, and discredited, forms of the Ôargument from illusionÕ in general
epistemology. That argument, in its least likeable but most ambitious form,
tried to derive the possibility of global, Cartesian error, from the fact of
individual, local, cases of fallibility and illusion. It too would have anyone
capable of thinking that they might be wrong, on an individual occasion, pulled
willy-nilly into a conception of Ôthe truthÕ which, for all we can every know,
might lie completely outside our purview. I mention this parallel not to
dismiss StreetÕs argument as identical, but to warn us of the need to analyse it sufficiently to determine whether or not it is.
Like
other arguments announced as applying to quasi-realism, this one affects a
rather wider class of theories. Any theory that insists that we have to work
from within a framework of values as we discuss values, or in other words
denies that the view of the exile from all values is either obtainable or
represents any kind of ideal, seems equally in the target area. Nobody, it
seems, could have an account of how our contingent natures line us up with Ôthe
independent moral truth as suchÕ. So, for example, moral sense theories, or
theories deploying an analogy with secondary qualities, will be equally vulnerable.
For Street insists that a NeurathÕs boat-inspired
epistemology is no help against her argument. If we started our evolutionary
journey badly off moral track then : Ôa process of
holding some values up for examination in the light of others holds little hope
of bringing those values into accord with independent normative truths. A badly
mistaken set of ultimate values brought into greater coherence is still badly
mistaken.Õ
There
is a question mark over some aspects of the way this is put: NeurathÕs boat is an analogy that does away with a category
of ÔultimateÕ values, if that means values that serve as an undiscussable
foundation for all others, and I for one have denied that greater coherence is
the only path towards moral improvement. There are other virtues than
coherence. But these are incidental to the fundamental problem.
For
by this stage the Ôindependent normative truth as suchÕ has become a strange
object. Unique, apparently, to justify the definite description, and not to be
found by creatures with contingently shaped psychologies (for details of
evolutionary history do not matter to StreetÕs argument, which is entirely
abstract in structure). No such creatures can be confident that their histories
have pushed them towards recognizing the Ôindependent normative truth as suchÕ.
It is natural to say that this represents a kind of Platonism, but even Plato
thought there was an epistemology of a kind for approaching the form of the Good
—many years studying mathematics, for a start. It is bettter
descibed as a conception that puts the equivalent of
Cartesian scepticism firmly on the moral map. So the malin genie of evolution and culture steers
our little boat, and its compass would only accidentally be orientated towards
the truth. The truth is inaccessible, unrecognizable, and lies over the
rainbow. Gibbard calls this vast realism; I shall call it Cartesian realism, to
remind us that its job is to soften us up for scepticism.
Is
Cartesian realism legitimately introduced on the back of the commonality that
obtains between Ben and Ann? Each of Benn and Ann contemplate a hypothetical
but possible scenario in which they feel differently about something, and each
sticks with their actual sentiments as they do so. This is the quasi-realistÕs
parsing of the phenomenon on which he builds the talk of ÔindependenceÕ that he
is prepared to justify. But is what is thereby built a Cartesian realism,
bringing scepticism, and the inadequacy of a NeurathÕs boat-inspired epistemology, with it?
No.
What one says about a scenario in which one feels differently about some
specific subject, and what one legitimately admits by way of practical
certainty are two entirely different
things. I am substantially certain, let us say, that happiness is better than
misery (if we want a ÔnormativeÕ proposition, that one ought to value happiness
more than misery). I suppose that evolutionary forces
or other contingencies made me such as to value happiness more than misery, and
good for them, since at least in this instance they have pushed me towards the
truth. If I contemplate a scenario in which I value misery more than
happiness—an almost unimaginable reversal, but I suppose I can just about
make sense of the extraordinary degree of misanthropy involved—itÕs
pretty awful, and it is pretty painful even to imagine the deterioration or
turning away from the good that it represents. This is beyond ordinary
misanthropy, since people afflicted with that usually think that happiness is
better than misery, but that ordinary horrible people therefore donÕt deserve
it. We might call it mega-misanthropy, and lament the catastrophes that might
lead someone to be like that!
Is
Ôthe normative truth as suchÕ a concept that somehow deprives me of the right
to the last paragraph? Not if it came in as a phrase distilled from the
commonality between Benn and Ann. For how did the fact that Ben and Ann, like
me, could each stick by their current sentiments as they contemplated the
scenarios in which they felt differently, possibly legitimize something only
recognizable, if at all, from some cosmically exiled, Archimedean standpoint
achievable by a non-evolved creature with no determinate sentiments of its own
to deploy?
In
other words Street is trying to show that by accommodating everyday admissions
of independence we are thereby pitched onto a road that can stop nowhere short
of unadulterated Cartesian realism. And this is parallel to what I called the
discredited version of the argument from illusion. And like ordinary
epistemologists, the quasi-realist can perfectly well refuse to travel that
road. Quasi-realism was never proposed as a way of legitimately earning everything
the most rabid Cartesian realist might say. It was only proposed as a way of
legitimately earning everything we want to preserve in everyday thought, and
that includes aspects that might, mistakenly, push people towards such an
extravagance. ÔThe independent normative truth as suchÕ conceived
as a piece of metaphysical fact which we may or may not be aligned with in any way
whatsoever, is just such a danger.
Consider
now the thought that evolution has pushed us towards moral truth. Again, I
would prefer to say evolution together with other contingent cultural forces,
since I do not see any reason to doubt the influence of other contingencies
than those covered under the idea of biological adaptation. If I think that
this has happened do I have to posit some unscientific, non-causal, shadowy
ghost of a notion of ÔtrackingÕ, as if these contingent forces are surreptitiously
tracking The Good, or perhaps as a matter of Hegelian axiology inevitably
pushing us towards alignment with Ôthe independent normative truth as suchÕ?
Of course not. First of all, it is important to free the
notion of tracking the moral truth from any image of a causal impingement from
a supernatural, or at any rate non-natural, world. Suppose I learn on very good
evidence that one of my colleagues has been running dog fights,
and I believe that he has thereby done something dreadful or appalling. Am I tracking
the moral truth? If he hadnÕt done anything dreadful or appalling, then I would
not have believed him to have done so. How so? Well,
to satisfy the counterfactual he wouldnÕt have run dog fights
or done anything equally appalling, and then presumably I would not have
believed that he did, since my evidence would not have prompted me to believe
that he did (I can track whether people run dog fights). Or perhaps running dog
fights would have been OK. How might that have been so? Well, dogs, or perhaps
ÒdogsÓ in this remote possible scenario might have been incapable of feeling
pain, for instance. This is hard to contemplate and might be hard to track, and
there might be a question whether out in such a remote region of logical space
fights are real fights. But waiving that, and handing myself a reasonable
epistemology of animal pain, I am still on course. If it had been alright, or
at least better than it is in our world, there is no reason to doubt that
I should have judged as much. The point is that we only run a test of the
conditional Ôif X had not been badÉ.Õ by varying whatever it is in virtue of
which X is bad, and there is no principled problem about tracking such
variations.
Tracking
is a good part of justification, but it is not all of it. It does not tell us
much about logical or mathematical or philosophical epistemology, for instance.
And I believe that at the end of some roads, we might come upon moral truths we
treat as necessary. Perhaps for me the proposition that other things being equal,
misery is worse than happiness has that status. I cannot think of any
contingencies it depends upon, nor can I conceive of scenarios in which it is
not the case, even if, as described above, I can just about make sense of
mega-misanthropists who feel otherwise. So perhaps it was not straightforward
tracking that brought me to believe it. Perhaps not, but does
that put me into the arms of the Cartesian sceptic?
Not at all. I am a little acquainted with both misery
and happiness, and so I suspect are you: the former strikes me as worse than
the latter—how does it strike you? Do you choose, recommend, desire and
promote misery above happiness? Are you a mega-misanthropist? I doubt it. I do
not, therefore, have to justify my own ranking to you, for you share it. We are
both of the party of mankind, and that is the only audience it is worth
engaging in questions of moral justification. If the
Cartesian sceptic is worried about this degree of
insouciance, so much the worse for him. As in the rest of life we ignore
him, or doubt his sincerity, but were we to meet him, we would ensure that he
is not put in charge of public policy.
We
see what to think about whether evolution has guided us towards ethics by
judging individual truths, and seeing if we can get a story about how evolution
might have adapted us to appreciate those truths. For the quasi-realist, this
is equivalent to seeing how evolution might have adapted us to have those
sentiments of which we are reasonably proud: altruism, a capacity for fairness,
an ability to make and keep promises, make and keep laws, as well as the
disposition to favour happiness above misery. Our
pride is itself a sentiment, of course. But it does not necessarily spring up
when we think of other sentiments to which we are prone. One is not proud of
oneÕs regrettable side, and most of us admit that we have one. But other things stand fast, and if you
do not value those on my list, you will value others. In other words, we stand
within and think of cases which our substantial
certainties allow us to discriminate. I already thanked evolution for one
success, namely my valuing of happiness above misery. There are many others.
Perhaps it is difficult to count and to draw up a balance sheet. Some would say
that contingencies of evolution and culture have left a bigger proportion of
the wolf and the serpent than they have given us of the dove. Others of a more optimistic
bent will think the reverse. Some, myself included, think that we donÕt do too
badly, but could do better.
Another
way of seeing the gap here is to see how Street herself
thinks of moral epistemology. She favours a kind of
ÔconstructivismÕ, reminiscent of John MackieÕs view that we ÔinventÕ right and
wrong. Our standards are our own constructions. But to be consistent she must deny
that when I contemplate a world in which I or we enjoy cruelty to animals, I am
contemplating a nasty world or a world in which I or we have deteriorated.
For this is the phenomenon that allegedly leads to Cartesian realism and
consequent scepticism, and it would engulf her own
position just as effectively as it engulfs any other. So her constructivism
must have her say—what, exactly? That a world in which we enjoy cruelty
to animals is as good as this? That there has been no moral progress since the
days of bear-baiting and legal dog-fights? If this is
constructivism, then heaven help us.
Cartesian
realism has no epistemology: it is simply the metaphysical face of global scepticism. In this it is one degree worse than other
realisms, including those sublimated in religious traditions. In the Christian
tradition, for instance, while we are mostly full of sin and ignorance, bent
and misshapen, victims of the Fall, there is
nevertheless a way to align ourselves with the Good. There is some inner spark
left which did not get corrupted by the Fall—the
one that illuminates the excellence of loving your neighbour
and turning the other cheek, for example. StreetÕs progress to Cartesian
Realism would devour that too: if the Christians are capable of thinking that
there are possible scenarios in which they admire things that do not deserve
admiration, which they surely do, then given their contingent natures, there
will be no guarantee that loving your neighbour and
turning the other cheek represents an improvement over doing your neighbour down and enthusiastically jumping on his grave.
Revelation is no more help than intuition or natural sentiment, for why should
evolution have adapted us to listen only to the right revelations?
Aristotle
taught us that the right method for epistemology is not to wipe the slate
clean, and then ask what we know in abstraction from anything that could count
as a way of knowing. It is to trust the endoxa
sufficiently to gain a picture of who and what we are that we have managed to
achieve beliefs that have every chance of being true. That is how the quasi-realist
works, and how anyone ought to work.