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Knowing Right From Wrong
Can we have objective knowledge of right and wrong, of how we should live and what there is reason to do? The thought that we can is beset by sceptical problems. In the face of radical disagreement, can we be sure that we are not deceived? If the facts are independent of what we think, is our reliability a mere coincidence? Can it be anything but luck when our beliefs are true? In Knowing Right From Wrong , Kieran Setiya confronts these questions in their most compelling and articulate forms: the argument from ethical disagreement; the argument from reliability and coincidence; and the argument from accidental truth. In order to resist the inference from disagreement to scepticism, he argues, we must reject epistemologies of intuition, coherence, and reflective equilibrium. The problem of disagreement can be solved only if the basic standards of epistemology in ethics are biased towards the truth. In order to solve the problem of coincidence, we must embrace arguments for
reliability in ethics that rely on ethical beliefs. Such arguments do not beg the question in an epistemically damaging way. And in order to make sense of ethical knowledge as non-accidental truth, we must give up the independence of ethical fact and belief. We can do so without implausible predictions of convergence or relativity if the facts are bound to us through the natural history of human life. If there is objective ethical knowledge, human nature is its source.
reliability in ethics that rely on ethical beliefs. Such arguments do not beg the question in an epistemically damaging way. And in order to make sense of ethical knowledge as non-accidental truth, we must give up the independence of ethical fact and belief. We can do so without implausible predictions of convergence or relativity if the facts are bound to us through the natural history of human life. If there is objective ethical knowledge, human nature is its source.
- GenresPhilosophy
192 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2012
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January 24, 2018
This is a challenging but rewarding text. Setiya's argument takes for granted the existence of ethical knowledge and asks what must be the case if such claims are true. What characteristics must ethical knowledge have given not only the reality of such knowledge but also the facts of ethical disagreement? In the first chapter, Setiya argues that ethical knowledge must not be based upon intuitions or coherence because these putative sources of knowledge fail to provide warrant for maintaining one's beliefs in the face of disagreement. Imagine someone says that slavery, racism, and causing gratuitous pain are ethically correct and any beliefs to the contrary are false. Given that we are virtuous we will dismiss these claims as the ravings of a vicious lowlife. But, Setiya argues, if we claim that our ethical knowledge is based upon our intuitions we have no grounds to do this since we have no basis for privileging our own intuitions over others. This shortcoming affects any account that is not founded upon a reliable mechanism for uncovering ethical knowledge. Setiya then offers an account of what he calls Reductive Epistemology, where ethical knowledge is based upon factual premises. In its basic form the claims states that x is n (a non-ethical fact) therefore x is e (an ethical fact). This approach provides the basis of a rejection of the vicious challenger's claims. The virtuous person need not privilege her intuitions gratuitously but instead appeals to her evidence in the face of the challenge. This, of course, raises the question of why one ought to privilege one's evidence. A questions that is not answered until the final chapter.
Chapter 2 addresses the question of coincidence, specifically: How is it that the claim to ethical knowledge is not a mere coincidence? This question results from the adaptation of a challenge first raised within the philosophy of mathematics. What is required is some account of ethical knowledge that explains why ethical inquiry reliably tracks ethical truth. At this point in the argument, Setiya agains appeals to the idea of factual evidence, essentially arguing that ethical claims are reliable because they are based upon evidence. This, of course, raises the question of how evidential claims are reliable. This topic is addressed in Chapter 3. Setiya first defines a criterion for reliability:
"K: When S knows that p, she knows it by a reliable method, and it is no accident that her method is reliable." (p. 95)
He then argues that Scanlon's realism about reasons is unable to meet this criteria. It is easy to see why this is the case. Scanlon bases his account of the epistemology of reasons for action on Rawls's notion of reflective equilibrium, and while he ambiguously notes that not just any sort of process of reaching an equilibrium is adequate, he stops short of arguing that the judgments constituting this process must be based upon a reliable capacity for ethical truth. Absent a defense of this capacity, the equation of reflective equilibrium (coherence of beliefs) and ethical truth seems merely gratuitous since nothing about the process equilibrium formation has any essential reference or relationship to ethical truth.
To make a long story short, Setiya draws upon Michael Thompson's elaboration of the concept of life, to develop an account of human nature as possessing a reliable capacity to attain ethical truth. It is important to step back and understand what Setiya is claiming. He has argued that if we possess ethical knowledge (ethical truth) then we must have a reliable capacity to attain this truth otherwise the process of attaining ethical beliefs will be unrelated to ethical truth (as in Scanlon's case), merely accidentally, and therefore implausible as the basis for ethical truth claims. Setiya thinks that human nature is the most plausible basis for this capacity. The biggest challenge to this view is the fact of ethical disagreement. Setiya claims that there is widespread agreement concerning ethical truths, especially when comparisons are limited to cases where there is also factual agreement. This excludes, for example, cults that base their engagement in human sacrifice on false theological beliefs. He also claims that where there is disagreement, this can be explained by harmful conditions of deprivation that have disrupted the human form of life. He recognizes that much more work is needed to adequately defend these claims. This book is extremely interesting and should be widely read. It raises extremely interesting questions concerning the relationship between empirical inquiry and moral theory and potentially opens new avenues of research.
Chapter 2 addresses the question of coincidence, specifically: How is it that the claim to ethical knowledge is not a mere coincidence? This question results from the adaptation of a challenge first raised within the philosophy of mathematics. What is required is some account of ethical knowledge that explains why ethical inquiry reliably tracks ethical truth. At this point in the argument, Setiya agains appeals to the idea of factual evidence, essentially arguing that ethical claims are reliable because they are based upon evidence. This, of course, raises the question of how evidential claims are reliable. This topic is addressed in Chapter 3. Setiya first defines a criterion for reliability:
"K: When S knows that p, she knows it by a reliable method, and it is no accident that her method is reliable." (p. 95)
He then argues that Scanlon's realism about reasons is unable to meet this criteria. It is easy to see why this is the case. Scanlon bases his account of the epistemology of reasons for action on Rawls's notion of reflective equilibrium, and while he ambiguously notes that not just any sort of process of reaching an equilibrium is adequate, he stops short of arguing that the judgments constituting this process must be based upon a reliable capacity for ethical truth. Absent a defense of this capacity, the equation of reflective equilibrium (coherence of beliefs) and ethical truth seems merely gratuitous since nothing about the process equilibrium formation has any essential reference or relationship to ethical truth.
To make a long story short, Setiya draws upon Michael Thompson's elaboration of the concept of life, to develop an account of human nature as possessing a reliable capacity to attain ethical truth. It is important to step back and understand what Setiya is claiming. He has argued that if we possess ethical knowledge (ethical truth) then we must have a reliable capacity to attain this truth otherwise the process of attaining ethical beliefs will be unrelated to ethical truth (as in Scanlon's case), merely accidentally, and therefore implausible as the basis for ethical truth claims. Setiya thinks that human nature is the most plausible basis for this capacity. The biggest challenge to this view is the fact of ethical disagreement. Setiya claims that there is widespread agreement concerning ethical truths, especially when comparisons are limited to cases where there is also factual agreement. This excludes, for example, cults that base their engagement in human sacrifice on false theological beliefs. He also claims that where there is disagreement, this can be explained by harmful conditions of deprivation that have disrupted the human form of life. He recognizes that much more work is needed to adequately defend these claims. This book is extremely interesting and should be widely read. It raises extremely interesting questions concerning the relationship between empirical inquiry and moral theory and potentially opens new avenues of research.
August 14, 2024
Unfortunately, I didn't get much out of this. I'll state a couple vague complaints and then make an argument that isn't vague.
My first vague complaint is that book felt reverse engineered - it felt Setiya had a rough Neo-Aristotelian picture in mind and, for the first three chapters, made the moves he needed in order to get there. That leads to a strange structure in which alternative views are rejected hastily and on which the reader is often left unclear as to why Setiya is making the moves he is.
That leads to the second vague complaint, which is that the writing is some of the less clear I've seen in modern philosophy, particularly in epistemology. Most of the book reads like a rough draft. I found the text genuinely frustrating and, at points, almost insulting. I find it a bit difficult to pin down exactly where things go wrong, but lack of explanation and elaboration is probably the biggest shortcoming. Setiya frequently explains complicated ideas in single sentences, sometimes introducing multiple at a time, moving on already by the next sentence. Normally, it is expected that philosophers spend at least a paragraph introducing an idea. This is important because ideas need to be disambiguated from similar but different ideas. Also, many philosophers use terms differently, and so if all one mentions is a term followed by a definition or a single example, it is easy for philosophers to talk past one another. If one is familiar with all the ideas involved as well as the modes of presentation under which they are discussed, one can follow Setiya, but if one is not, then following becomes a slog. To cite specific examples, I found the discussions of doxastic and propositional justification, Hume's Law as well as accidentality and the view called "K" particularly difficult to follow.
Here's a brief argument to the effect that Setiya's argument against the intuition view, which serves as his starting point for the rest of his project, is flawed.
Setiya motivates the rejection of intuitionism on the basis of something I'll call the Equality Principle. The idea is this: when epistemic peers disagree about some observation, they should both doubt the content of their own observation. For example, suppose Tom and Jerry are both fans of horse racing, and they are equally skilled at judging which horse has won. Suppose that they watch a particular horse race and disagree about which horse has won. Tom believes he saw horse X win, whereas Jerry believes he saw horse Y win. If they lack further evidence, such as an instant replay video or a photograph or other observers, it seems plausible to think that Tom and Jerry should suspend belief - they should concede that neither of them is more justified in thinking the horse they believe to have won has in fact won. That is, this case intuitively supports the Equality Principle.
Setiya utilizes the Equality Principle to motivate his rejection of the intuitionism view. He proposes that there could, under some circumstances, be epistemic peers who disagree with our moral views. Where we have the intuition that X, they have the intuition that Y (where Y implies ~X). Setiya claims that because there COULD BE such a community, that inutionism therefore leads to skepticism. That is, we could, under some circumstances, meet epistemic peers who have intuitions inversed from our own such that we ought to, if Equality is True, throw out all of our moral beliefs.
Setiya claims that because the intuition view 'leads to skepticism' that we should therefore reject the view. (This argument takes place between pages 23 and 39.)
There are countless problems with this argument, but I'll simply note one: it's blatantly self-defeating. If the fact that our epistemic peers COULD under some circumstances disagree with us on X is a reason for us to throw out our beliefs relating to X, then we should throw out our belief in the Equality Principle. Why? Well, our epistemic peers COULD under some circumstances disagree with us on the Equality Principle.
Setiya might try to remove the "could," sticking with just the Equality Principle formulated in terms of what people IN FACT perceive or believe, but then his argument fails. In order for the intuition model to lead to skepticism, it would need to be the case that there are IN FACT epistemic peers who exist in equal numbers to us who disagree with us on everything. But that blatantly isn't the case. Virtually all people and virtually all philosophers agree on most particular moral judgements: lying is wrong, murder is wrong, torture is wrong, genocide is wrong, etc. (Philosophers tend to only disagree in edge cases, such as abortion or in conflicts of values, such as the debate about what exact point lying to prevent harms becomes permissible.)
(And, note, that the Equality Principle is only plausible if the disagreement involves ROUGHLY EQUAL numbers who believe they have perceived P and ~P. For example, suppose there are 10 of us watching a horse race, and 9 of us believe that horse X won, whereas 1 single person believes they saw horse Y win. Here, it isn't plausible that the larger group should throw out their belief.)
Worse, if what matters is whether epistemic peers IN FACT disagree, then there is the fact that epistemologists IN FACT disagree about the Equality Principle. (In fact, most everyone rejects it.) So, according to the Equality Principle, we should throw out the Equality Principle.
Hence, Setiya's argument is self-defeating.
(Setiya could dig his heels in, and insist that the Equality Principle is true, but that we can never be justified in believing it. But that won't help him. In that case, he's just conceded that we're not justified in believing the principle he needs for his argument. And, if we shouldn't believe the Equality Principle, then we shouldn't do moral epistemology as if that principle were true and therefore we shouldn't accept his argument against the intuition view that utilize that principle...)
(It's worth noting that, later on, in future chapters, Setiya discusses indirectly and briefly other arguments that he takes to count against versions of intuitionsim. That said, those arguments do not succeed against more sophisticated versions of intuitionism that are defended by actual intuitionists in the literature.)
I suspect that this flaw in one of the opening arguments that is used to motivate the rest of the book is simply a product of working backwards and/or writing unclearly. There were similar flaws throughout the text, particularly during the first two chapters.
My first vague complaint is that book felt reverse engineered - it felt Setiya had a rough Neo-Aristotelian picture in mind and, for the first three chapters, made the moves he needed in order to get there. That leads to a strange structure in which alternative views are rejected hastily and on which the reader is often left unclear as to why Setiya is making the moves he is.
That leads to the second vague complaint, which is that the writing is some of the less clear I've seen in modern philosophy, particularly in epistemology. Most of the book reads like a rough draft. I found the text genuinely frustrating and, at points, almost insulting. I find it a bit difficult to pin down exactly where things go wrong, but lack of explanation and elaboration is probably the biggest shortcoming. Setiya frequently explains complicated ideas in single sentences, sometimes introducing multiple at a time, moving on already by the next sentence. Normally, it is expected that philosophers spend at least a paragraph introducing an idea. This is important because ideas need to be disambiguated from similar but different ideas. Also, many philosophers use terms differently, and so if all one mentions is a term followed by a definition or a single example, it is easy for philosophers to talk past one another. If one is familiar with all the ideas involved as well as the modes of presentation under which they are discussed, one can follow Setiya, but if one is not, then following becomes a slog. To cite specific examples, I found the discussions of doxastic and propositional justification, Hume's Law as well as accidentality and the view called "K" particularly difficult to follow.
Here's a brief argument to the effect that Setiya's argument against the intuition view, which serves as his starting point for the rest of his project, is flawed.
Setiya motivates the rejection of intuitionism on the basis of something I'll call the Equality Principle. The idea is this: when epistemic peers disagree about some observation, they should both doubt the content of their own observation. For example, suppose Tom and Jerry are both fans of horse racing, and they are equally skilled at judging which horse has won. Suppose that they watch a particular horse race and disagree about which horse has won. Tom believes he saw horse X win, whereas Jerry believes he saw horse Y win. If they lack further evidence, such as an instant replay video or a photograph or other observers, it seems plausible to think that Tom and Jerry should suspend belief - they should concede that neither of them is more justified in thinking the horse they believe to have won has in fact won. That is, this case intuitively supports the Equality Principle.
Setiya utilizes the Equality Principle to motivate his rejection of the intuitionism view. He proposes that there could, under some circumstances, be epistemic peers who disagree with our moral views. Where we have the intuition that X, they have the intuition that Y (where Y implies ~X). Setiya claims that because there COULD BE such a community, that inutionism therefore leads to skepticism. That is, we could, under some circumstances, meet epistemic peers who have intuitions inversed from our own such that we ought to, if Equality is True, throw out all of our moral beliefs.
Setiya claims that because the intuition view 'leads to skepticism' that we should therefore reject the view. (This argument takes place between pages 23 and 39.)
There are countless problems with this argument, but I'll simply note one: it's blatantly self-defeating. If the fact that our epistemic peers COULD under some circumstances disagree with us on X is a reason for us to throw out our beliefs relating to X, then we should throw out our belief in the Equality Principle. Why? Well, our epistemic peers COULD under some circumstances disagree with us on the Equality Principle.
Setiya might try to remove the "could," sticking with just the Equality Principle formulated in terms of what people IN FACT perceive or believe, but then his argument fails. In order for the intuition model to lead to skepticism, it would need to be the case that there are IN FACT epistemic peers who exist in equal numbers to us who disagree with us on everything. But that blatantly isn't the case. Virtually all people and virtually all philosophers agree on most particular moral judgements: lying is wrong, murder is wrong, torture is wrong, genocide is wrong, etc. (Philosophers tend to only disagree in edge cases, such as abortion or in conflicts of values, such as the debate about what exact point lying to prevent harms becomes permissible.)
(And, note, that the Equality Principle is only plausible if the disagreement involves ROUGHLY EQUAL numbers who believe they have perceived P and ~P. For example, suppose there are 10 of us watching a horse race, and 9 of us believe that horse X won, whereas 1 single person believes they saw horse Y win. Here, it isn't plausible that the larger group should throw out their belief.)
Worse, if what matters is whether epistemic peers IN FACT disagree, then there is the fact that epistemologists IN FACT disagree about the Equality Principle. (In fact, most everyone rejects it.) So, according to the Equality Principle, we should throw out the Equality Principle.
Hence, Setiya's argument is self-defeating.
(Setiya could dig his heels in, and insist that the Equality Principle is true, but that we can never be justified in believing it. But that won't help him. In that case, he's just conceded that we're not justified in believing the principle he needs for his argument. And, if we shouldn't believe the Equality Principle, then we shouldn't do moral epistemology as if that principle were true and therefore we shouldn't accept his argument against the intuition view that utilize that principle...)
(It's worth noting that, later on, in future chapters, Setiya discusses indirectly and briefly other arguments that he takes to count against versions of intuitionsim. That said, those arguments do not succeed against more sophisticated versions of intuitionism that are defended by actual intuitionists in the literature.)
I suspect that this flaw in one of the opening arguments that is used to motivate the rest of the book is simply a product of working backwards and/or writing unclearly. There were similar flaws throughout the text, particularly during the first two chapters.
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