Abstract
A prominent argument for moral realism notes that we are inclined to accept realism in science because scientific inquiry supports a robust set of critical practices—error, improvement, explanation, and the like. It then argues that because morality displays a comparable set of critical practices, a claim to moral realism is just as warranted as a claim to scientific realism. But the argument is only as strong as its central analogy—and here there is trouble. If the analogy between the critical practices of science and morality is loosely interpreted, the argument does not support moral realism—for paradigmatically constructivist discourses like fashion display the relevant critical practices just as well. So if the argument is to have force, the realist must say more about why the critical practices of morality are sufficiently like those of science to warrant realism. But this cannot be done—moral inquiry differs from scientific inquiry in too many important ways. So the analogy with the critical practices of science fails to vindicate moral realism. But there are further lessons: in looking closely at the critical practices of our moral discourse—and in comparing them to the critical practices of science and fashion—we gain insight into what is distinctive about morality objectivity and moral metaphysics.
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Notes
Witness Brink on this point: “the metaphysical and epistemological commitments of moral realism are very similar to, and so no less plausible than, those of realism about commonsense physical theory and the natural and social sciences” (1989, p. 12). c.f., Bloomfield (2001, pp. 28–29, 74), Boyd (1988, p. 184).
Arguments raising concerns about analogies between the critical practices of science and the critical practices of morality are most prominent in the literature on moral explanation, though it can be found elsewhere. Arguments of this sort are made by, for instance, Harman (1977), Mackie (1977), Crispin Wright (1992, Chap. 5), Nichols (2004, pp. 149–154, 161–164), and Rubin (2008). Hallvard Lillehammer (2007, esp. Chaps. 5–7) develops a more general critique of analogy arguments in debates about the objectivity of our moral and evaluative discourse. For realist replies, see (e.g.) Sturgeon (1985), Brink (1989), and Railtons (1986a). Also see Loeb (2003).
A couple points: (1) While the discussion that follows is framed in terms of moral properties, these realists typically endorse a similar picture for moral facts. (2) Though there are a variety of subtle and interesting difference in the accounts that these realists offer, they will not affect the arguments below.
Though Brink and Bloomfield speak in more general terms, they also take moral properties to be higher-order functional properties constituted in virtue of the causal relations holding among various human needs, wants, capacities, etc. See, for instance, Brink (1984, pp. 121–122) and Bloomfield (2001, p. 19).
Sharon Street (2006, pp. 136–138) denies that the account of non-moral goodness that Railton gives in his 1986b counts as a version of realism. While (oddly) she does not discuss Railton (1986a) account of moral rightness, it’s worth briefly explaining why it would be implausible to try to extend her argument here. For starters, Street’s claim that Railton is not a realist is based on an understanding of the realism/irrealism distinction that is different than the one I have employed. While I discuss the distinction in terms of the traditional Euthyphro contrast, Street does not. Rather, she maintains that a view is irrealist if the evaluative facts could change were our moral/evaluative attitudes (e.g., our desires, attitudes, evaluative tendencies) different (p. 136). Moreover, my use of the Euthyphro contrast, and the realist interpretation of Railton that it brings, is preferable to Street’s reading. Not only does Railton himself employ the Euthyphro contrast to draw the realism/irrealism distinction (1986a, p. 12; 1986b, pp. 62–63), but he declares himself to be defending “stark, raving moral realism,” not some kind of irrealism (1986a, p. 5). A final point: even if we suppose that Railton is better understood as an ideal observer constructivist, the argument that follows would still have full force against other advocates of the analogy argument who are not plausibly understood as advocating a constructivist moral metaphysics (e.g., Bloomfield, Boyd, Brink, and Sturgeon).
These telling features can be found, in various forms, in the works referenced in note 1. It is worth mentioning that the “telling features” cited in the text are those that naturalistic moral realists appeal to in order to vindicate their realism. These features can be distinguished from other features of our moral discourse—e.g., declarative syntax, assertoric form, embedding within unasserted contexts—that realists point to in order to vindicate a more general claim to moral cognitivism. Since my concern is with the debate between realists and constructivists, in what follows, I will focus on the features that tell for realism.
Though there are variations in the details, versions of the analogy argument are used by the other naturalistic moral realists cited in note 1. For instance, Boyd explains that his “general strategy” for defending moral realism will be to “[s]how that moral beliefs and methods are much more like our current conception of scientific beliefs and methods (more ‘objective’, ‘external’, ‘empirical’, ‘intersubjective’, for example) than we now think” (p. 184). Moreover, when he later claims that moral thought is like scientific thought in being shaped by causal feedback mechanism, he explains that he intends “the analogy between moral inquiry and scientific inquiry to be taken very seriously” (p. 204, original emphasis). Similarly, Bloomfield acknowledges his reliance on the analogy argument when he explains that the “[t]he central thesis of this book is that moral goodness has the same ontological status as physical healthiness, so that if we are realists about the latter, then we ought to be also about the former” (p. 28). Moreover, Bloomfield points to telling features like fallibility as part of what inclines us toward realism about healthiness, and thus as part of what ought to incline us to realism about goodness as well (p. 38). It’s also worth noting that while these realists use the analogy argument to provide a positive case for their realism, they also use it as a tool for countering various objections. But as Brink (1989, p. 12) explains, these negative uses of analogies with scientific practice also have positive argumentative force: “In defending moral realism against objections, I shall stress the parallels between the metaphysical and epistemological commitments of ethics and those of other disciplines that we do or should regard as realist [e.g., the sciences]. If these parallels are as frequent and important as I claim, we have further reason for accepting moral realism”.
As noted in the text, our primary use of terms like ‘fashionable’ and ‘chic’ aims to pick out constructed properties and facts. However, there are a couple of secondary uses where one might think that a realist construal is plausible. Because my argument builds on a notion of fashion that is constructed, it will be worthwhile to briefly explain why these secondary uses are not appropriate for the discussion that follows. First, there may be a secondary use of ‘fashionable’ that is more or less equivalent to judgments of beauty (e.g., when we talk of a style that is “timelessly fashionable”). While this secondary use might have some claim to a realist construal, that claim would be at least as controversial as the associated claim to realism about the beautiful—and likely more so. More importantly, this fashion-as-beauty use is ill-suited for capturing central features of our fashion discourse: as noted, predicates like ‘is fashionable’ and ‘is chic’ are typically used to pick out properties that are intimately tied to fluid social/group conventions and individual tastes. As such, a realist construal of them is generally thought implausible (see Railton 1997 for a similar point). Second, there is a wholly sociological/descriptive use of ‘is fashionable’ that tracks things like what individuals or cultures regard as fashionable, and how fashion norms evolve and get transmitted. But because this notion is descriptive, it fails to capture the normative function that is central to our fashion discourse. While there are interesting questions about how this secondary descriptive use is related to the primary prescriptive one, I will not take that up here.
It’s worth noting that fashion properties and facts pass the counterfactual test that some naturalistic realists (e.g., Sturgeon 1986; Railton 1986a, Brink 1989) take as evidence for the robustness of a particular explanation or prediction. For instance, the claim ‘were Clooney not so fashionable, he would not have made all the stylish clothing choices that he did’ seems just as true as Sturgeon’s claim ‘were Hitler not morally depraved, he would not have done all the evil that he did’.
It’s significant that this sha** needn’t be conscious: I might deliberately decide to change the way that I dress because I believe your critical comments are correct; but your comments might also cause me to unknowingly start to mimic your style. c.f., Brink (1989, pp. 188–189).
Consider the following exchange from the New York Times blog coverage of the Fall 2009 Prada fashion show (Horyn 2009):
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Post 1: [I]f Miuccia Prada is doing fishing waders in her show, you know she’s not just doing any old waders. And this is not just any collection. I loved the equal treatment, the equal value, she gave to the [fishing waders] and to posh fur, or to glossy velvet and practical country tweeds. … What made this collection work so well—energetically, brilliantly—is that Prada applied the thinking across the board. Everything was consistent
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Post 2: I see no designs at all…just mad-cap random styling of pre-existing items.
Notice that not only is there disagreement about whether Prada’s fall collection is fashionable, but both commentators offer reasons to substantiate their claims (“equal treatment” of different elements in a “consistent” manner vs. “mad-cap random styling of pre-existing items”).
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Holland (2007).
This discussion points to a more general lesson: belief independent explanations are most plausible as evidence for realism when they are not about social-psychological phenomena. The examples in the text suggest that when we have a social-psychological phenomenon, it will (typically) be possible to develop plausible belief independent explanations that nonetheless presume a constructivist metaphysics. But when the phenomenon is not social-psychological in nature—as we have in the case of the water-spider—explanations that presume a constructivist metaphysics will be more difficult to develop. So while the moral realist is right to think that belief independent explanation can support a claim to realism in some discourses, he’s wrong to think that such explanations are possible for morality.
Thus while arguments from unnoticed error are consistent with there being some connection between truth and justification, arguments from deep error are not.
Is it ad hoc to see morality and fashion as employing different forms of constructivism? No. As will become apparent below, looking to the distinctive functions that morality and fashion play can provide the constructivist about the evaluative with a principled account of why morality should be seen as employing one type of construction procedure but fashion another.
One might try to resist the argument in the text by questioning whether the ideal observer account really explains genuine disagreement and unnoticed error. But given the significant similarities between this proposal and Railton’s, I don’t see how such a move could avoid also undermining his realist proposal. Whether the accounts of Boyd, Brink, and others would be spared is less clear given the more schematic nature of their proposals.
A final realist strategy: The realist could respond, not by tackling the second horn of the dilemma, but rather by denying that there is a dilemma in the first place. In particular, were he able to make a plausible case for fashion realism, then the tension in the analogy argument that the dilemma seeks to exploit would disappear. One might add that a plausible case for fashion realism can be developed on the model of aesthetic value proposed in Railton (1997).
Why this strategy fails: As discussed above (§3), a realist account of our primary use of predicates like ‘is fashionable’ and ‘is chic’ fits poorly with the robust connections that our judgments about what’s fashionable have with fluid social conventions and individual tastes. So there’s little reason to think that this strategy would work. In fact, this very point is nicely illustrated by Railton’s proposal: He acknowledges that his account of aesthetic value is importantly different from his account of moral value in that only for the former are the values in question sensitive to culturally variable factors (1997, pp. 116, 124). In light of this, it is difficult to see how his account of aesthetic value could be used to make a case for fashion realism. Moreover, it’s also worth noting that Railton does not present his account of aesthetic value as an account of realism; rather, he presents it as an account that is capable of securing robust forms of objectivity. In so doing, I believe we might understand him as acknowledging a central theme of this essay—namely, that securing robust forms of objectivity does not require a realist metaphysics.
While I have been using an absolutist ideal observer form of constructivism throughout much of the essay, I do not believe that this is the only form of constructivism that could capture the distinctive critical practices of our moral discourse, much less the best. But that is an argument for another time.
Versions of this paper were presented at the 2009 Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress and the 2010 Central Division APA. Thanks to those audiences for helpful discussions and, especially, to Paul Bloomfield and Howard Nye for their written comments. Many thanks as well to Richard Arneson, Nina Brewer-Davis, David Brink, Jonathan Cohen, Dale Dorsey, Mike Tiboris, and an anonymous referee for their input.
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Kurth, C. What do our critical practices say about the nature of morality?. Philos Stud 166, 45–64 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-0020-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-0020-7