Are We Playing a Moral Lottery? Moral Disagreement from a Metasemantic Perspective

If someone disagrees with my moral views, or more generally if I’m in a group of n people who all disagree with each other, but I don’t have any special evidence or basis for my epistemic superiority, then it’s at best a 1-in-n chance that my views are correct. The skeptical threat from disagreement is thus a kind of moral lottery, to adapt a similar metaphor from Sharon Street. Her own genealogical debunking argument, as I discuss, relies on a premise of such disagreement among evolutionary counterparts.In this paper, I resist the threat from disagreement by showing that, on some of the most influential and most attractive theories of content determination, the premise of moral disagreement cannot serve any skeptical or revisionary purposes. I examine and criticize attempts, made by Gilbert Harman and Sharon Street, to argue from disagreement to relativism by relying on a theory of content determination that involves a principle that, within certain constraints, maximizes the attribution to us of true beliefs. And I examine and criticize Robert Williams’s attempt to show there is moral disagreement by relying on a theory of content determination that involves a principle that instead maximizes the attribution to us of rationality. My overall aim is to defend commonsense moral realism via a careful look at the theory of content and concepts.

Dependência epistêmica, testemunho e gettierização

O objetivo deste ensaio é examinar a proposta de Sandy Goldberg, segundo a qual há divisão de trabalho epistêmico em certos processos de aquisição de conhecimento – ao menos em se tratando de conhecimento testemunhal. Goldberg propõe mostrar a veracidade desta alegação salientando a nossa dependência epistêmica em relação a outros indivíduos, ou mesmo comunidades inteiras. Nós, então, vamos propor o tratamento de um famoso caso tipo-Gettier que, segundo Gilbert Harman, revelaria algumas dimensões sociais do conhecimento. Por fim, nós esperamos tirar algumas lições da explicação oferecida por Goldberg, dentre as quais a mais importante a ser tomada é que, havendo tal divisão de trabalho epistêmico em processos de aquisição de conhecimento, muitas vezes, não são apenas as propriedades epistêmicas do sujeito que determinam a sua posse de conhecimento ou ignorância, de modo que o conhecimento é mais social do que individual em se tratando de uma ampla gama de casos.

Explaining Behavior

This chapter explores the relationship between the crimes committed by American troops at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo’s experiment is one of the most famous of a large body of social psychology experiments that support the “situationist” perspective on human behavior. A central situationist claim is that features of the situations in which people act have a greater influence on behavior than we ordinarily suppose, and enduring features of personality and character have a correspondingly smaller role in explaining behavior. We explain how this research has been interpreted by psychologists such as Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett and by philosophers such as Gilbert Harman and John Doris.

Intention, Belief, and Instrumental Rationality

This essay continues my critique of the cognitivist view that the norms on intention of instrumental rationality and consistency are, at bottom, norms of theoretical rationality on one’s beliefs. It critically examines the cognitivist views of Gilbert Harman, J. David Velleman, Kieran Setiya, and John Broome. The essay sketches a proposed alternative to such cognitivism: the practical commitment view of instrumental rationality. The essay explores the challenge posed for cognitivism by the possibility of false beliefs about one’s own intentions; and the essay also explores the idea that, while belief aims at truth, intention aims at coordinated, effective control of action.

Intention, Belief, Practical, Theoretical

This essay argues against an approach—one I call cognitivism—that tries to understand synchronic plan rationality as, at bottom a matter of theoretical rationality of belief. This approach is taken by, among others, Gilbert Harman, J. David Velleman, and R. Jay Wallace. I explain several problems for such cognitivism: there are problems posed by the possibility of false beliefs about what one intends; and there are problems posed by the need to distinguish intended means from expected side effects. In response to a challenge from Velleman, I sketch an alternative approach, one that sees these planning norms as fundamentally practical norms and that notes a parallel with Peter Strawson’s treatment of the framework of reactive attitudes.

Does Situationism Threaten Free Will and Moral Responsibility?

The situationist movement in social psychology has caused a considerable stir in philosophy. Much of this was prompted by the work of Gilbert Harman and John Doris. Both contended that familiar philosophical assumptions about the role of character in the explanation of action were not supported by experimental results. Most of the ensuing philosophical controversy has focused upon issues related to moral psychology and ethical theory. More recently, the influence of situationism has also given rise to questions regarding free will and moral responsibility. There is cause for concern that a range of situationist findings are in tension with the reasons-responsiveness putatively required for free will and moral responsibility. We develop and defend a response to the alleged situationist threat to free will and moral responsibility that we call pessimistic realism. We conclude on an optimistic note, exploring the possibility of strengthening our agency in the face of situational influences.

La inferencia a la mejor explicación

El artículo que presentamos a continuación apareció por primera vez en enero de 1965 en The Philosophical Review 74 (1): 88-95. Agradecemos puntualmente a The Philosophical Review, a la Duke University Press y al profesor Gilbert Harman por otorgar el consentimiento para la traducción del texto. El ensayo de Harman dio inicio a una intensa discusión en torno a la reconstrucción filosófica de los métodos científicos de inferencia, que sigue ocupando un lugar preponderante entre los actuales debates en epistemología. Asimismo, la propuesta de Harman ha sido ampliamente adoptada en metodología filosófica —sobre todo por filósofos de orientación naturalista— como alternativa frente a la argumentación trascendental. La traducción fue realizada por Jorge R. Tagle Marroquín y Marc Jiménez Rolland.

Anulabilidade e o Paradoxo do Dogmatismo

O objetivo deste ensaio é examinar a recente crítica de Maria Lasonen-Aarnio à solução anulabilista do paradoxo do dogmatismo. Tal paradoxo consiste no argumento de que certos princípios epistêmicos autorizam qualquer sujeito cognoscente a desconsiderar contraevidências para o que ele sabe. Porém, esta atitude dogmática é comumente julgada como injustificada e o sujeito que a toma é comumente julgado como irracional. A solução anulabilista do paradoxo do dogmatismo foi posta em circulação por Gilbert Harman e sugere que o problema é resolvido assim que se abandona a suposição de que o conhecimento não pode ser derrotado por contraevidências. Lasonen-Aarnio acredita que tal solução é insatisfatória porque ainda haveria, em certas circunstâncias, justificação para ser dogmático mesmo admitindo e sofrendo derrota epistêmica. Desse modo, a solução anulabilista deixa ainda alguma medida de dogmatismo autorizada para o sujeito. Iniciaremos com uma introdução ao problema, explicando em que consiste o paradoxo do dogmatismo e expondo as diferentes versões nas quais foi apresentado. Em seguida, vamos nos voltar para uma versão do argumento pró-dogmatismo. Consideraremos, então, a solução anulabilista proposta por Harman e a crítica de Lasonen-Aarnio. Por fim, apresentaremos três objeções à eficácia da crítica de Lasonen-Aarnio.

Gilbert Harman and Ernie Lepore, eds. A Companion to W.V.O. Quine

Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014.<br /><br />600pp. $195 Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-470-67210-5.<br /><br />Reviewed by James Pearson. <p> </p>