Abstract:I will not consistently add the qualification "realistically construed" in what follows. But this is always intended. (Obviously, no argument supports or threatens our beliefs under any construal.) Realism about an area, D, is roughly the view that D-sentences should be interpreted literally, and that some atomic or existentially quantified ones are true relevantly counterfactually, constitutively, and causally independent of anyone's believing them to be. For a detailed explication of "D-realism," see Clarke-… Show more
“…A truth‐functional relation, in contrast, is congenial to sensitivity or safety requirements for knowledge and justification (and thus satisfies our first requirement), but it can be shown to violate the second requirement: arguments to the effect that moral beliefs are trivially sensitive and very likely to be safe can be interpreted in this light (cf. Clarke‐Doane, ). These observations suggest that Pollock’s account of undercutting defeat is inadequate to underwrite an evolutionary undercutting challenge.…”
Section: Limits Of Evolutionary Undercutting Of Morality and Two Waysmentioning
I make a case for distinguishing clearly between subjective and objective accounts of undercutting defeat and for rejecting a hybrid view that takes both subjective and objective elements to be relevant for whether or not a belief is defeated. Moderate subjectivists claim that taking a belief to be defeated is sufficient for the belief to be defeated; subjectivist idealists add that if an idealised agent takes a belief to be defeated then the belief is defeated. Subjectivist idealism evades some of the objections levelled against moderate subjectivism but can be shown to yield inconsistent results in some cases. Both subjectivisms should be rejected. We should be objectivists regarding undercutting defeat. This requirement, however, is likely to be problematic for a popular interpretation of evolutionary debunking arguments in metaethics as it can be shown that existing objectivist accounts of defeat do not support such arguments. I end by discussing the constraints of developing such an account.
“…A truth‐functional relation, in contrast, is congenial to sensitivity or safety requirements for knowledge and justification (and thus satisfies our first requirement), but it can be shown to violate the second requirement: arguments to the effect that moral beliefs are trivially sensitive and very likely to be safe can be interpreted in this light (cf. Clarke‐Doane, ). These observations suggest that Pollock’s account of undercutting defeat is inadequate to underwrite an evolutionary undercutting challenge.…”
Section: Limits Of Evolutionary Undercutting Of Morality and Two Waysmentioning
I make a case for distinguishing clearly between subjective and objective accounts of undercutting defeat and for rejecting a hybrid view that takes both subjective and objective elements to be relevant for whether or not a belief is defeated. Moderate subjectivists claim that taking a belief to be defeated is sufficient for the belief to be defeated; subjectivist idealists add that if an idealised agent takes a belief to be defeated then the belief is defeated. Subjectivist idealism evades some of the objections levelled against moderate subjectivism but can be shown to yield inconsistent results in some cases. Both subjectivisms should be rejected. We should be objectivists regarding undercutting defeat. This requirement, however, is likely to be problematic for a popular interpretation of evolutionary debunking arguments in metaethics as it can be shown that existing objectivist accounts of defeat do not support such arguments. I end by discussing the constraints of developing such an account.
“…Again, Clarke‐Doane has defended the analogy (Clarke‐Doane, , , ). Moral beliefs aren't insensitive after all.…”
Section: Mathematics and Moral Epistemologymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…But this may be equally true of our mathematical beliefs. In a classic CIG manoeuvre, Clarke‐Doane () writes: [W]e seem to be equally unable to show that [true] beliefs … are sensitive with respect to conceptually possible worlds. The mathematical case makes the point vividly.…”
Section: Mathematics and Moral Epistemologymentioning
Arguments for some controversial positions in metaethicstypically moral scepticism or the moral error theory-are sometimes thought to overreach. They appear to entail sceptical or error-theoretic views about non-moral branches of thought in a sense that is costly or implausible. If this is true, those metaethical arguments should be rejected. This is the companions in guilt strategy in metaethics. In this article, the contemporary use of the companions in guilt strategy is explored and assessed. The methodology of the strategy is discussed, and criteria for assessing specific instances of its use are identified. Prominent instances of its use in the contemporary literature are then examined.The focus is on those that take (a) epistemic judgment, (b) prudential judgment, and (c) mathematical judgment as "companions," with a view to undermining the moral error theory and moral scepticism, respectively.
“…sensitive and safe. The argument he develops to this end runs like this: (1) is an assumption about epistemic undermining according to which the only way to undermine a belief (that is, to cast doubt on a belief without rebutting it) 6 is to threaten its credibility modally. Clarke-Doane refers to this principle as 'Modal Security:' "If Information, E, undermines all of our beliefs of a kind, [D], then it does so by giving us reason to doubt that our [D]-beliefs are both sensitive and safe" (forthcoming (a): 25).…”
Section: Evolution Against Realism: Debunking Argumentsmentioning
I argue that recent attempts to deflect Access Problems for realism about a priori domains such as mathematics, logic, morality, and modality using arguments from evolution result in two kinds of explanatory overkill: (1) the Access Problem is eliminated for contentious domains, and (2) realist belief becomes viciously immune to arguments from dispensability, and to non-rebutting counter-arguments more generally.
Access ProblemsLet D be a domain of a priori truths. The Access Problem (also known as the Reliability Challenge) for realism about D consists in the apparent impossibility of explaining how knowledge of the D-truths is possible, if these truths are understood realistically (i.e. as objectively/ response-independently/ robustly true). Formulated as a question: How could it be anything but a fluke that our D-beliefs reliably match the D-truths? Failure to provide an explanation suitable to bridge this gap between the D-truths and the subject holding Dbeliefs has been argued to undermine realist belief in the D-truths.2 Domains supposedly affected by Access Problems are:Mathematics: The Access Problem for the domain of mathematics is also known as the Benacerraf-Field Challenge. Benacerraf points out that "If...numbers are the kinds of entities they are normally taken to be [namely, mind-independent abstract objects], then the connection between the truth conditions for the statements of number theory and any relevant events connected with the people who are supposed to have mathematical knowledge cannot be made out" (1973: 673). Field clarifies: "Benacerraf's challenge...is to provide an account of the mechanisms that explain how our beliefs about these remote entities can so well reflect the facts about them...The idea is that if it appears in principle impossible to explain this, 1 Many thanks to Ana Bajzelj, Claire Benn, Sharon Berry, Meir Buzaglo, Elvira DiBona, Justin Clarke-Doane, David Enoch, Peter Gerdes, Sharon Krishek, Arnon Levy, Ittay NissanRozen, Olla Solomyak, Ruth Weintraub, and an anonymous referee, for helpful comments and discussions.2 The Access Problem is a problem for realism specifically. As such, it is not identical to the more general epistemic problem of justification: a theory of justification (for example coherentism) can explain how our beliefs are justified, yet fail to eliminate the Access Problem.
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