A second round of objections to Philosophy for the People

I raise a few objections to remarks made in this video. The video involves a discussion with Philosophy for the People, whose channel you can find here.

(1) Distinguishing agent and appraiser relativism

At around 12:17 Pat says “I don’t think most people want to say that, ‘Well, to each their own’, on that point. I don’t think the person wants to say ‘I just want my society to be like this way, I’m cool if they have their totalitarian…” No, they want to say there’s something wrong with that one.

Pat seems to present a dichotomy here between either (a) being okay with other societies having horrible moral practices or (b) thinking that those society’s practices are objectively wrong. But this is not a genuine dichotomy. A moral antirealist can be morally opposed to other people and society’s practices without having to think those practices are objectively wrong.

We can distinguish between agent relativism, which holds that an action is right or wrong relative to the standards of the person performing the action, or the moral standards of that person’s culture, and appraiser relativism, which treats moral claims as true or false relative to those making or appraising the claims. Pat’s depiction of relativism seems only to imply agent relativism, rather than appraiser relativism. Yet relativists aren’t required to endorse agent relativism. An appraiser relativist can consider only their moral standards to be morally right or wrong. While they may acknowledge that different sets of moral standards may be true relative to the moral standards of other people and cultures, they are not themselves required to consider these moral standards good.

For comparison, suppose you dislike pineapple on pizza. It is also true that other people like pineapple on pizza. You can believe that pineapple on pizza is bad relative to your standards, and good relative to their standards. It does not follow that you must, yourself, consider pineapple good.

The difference between taste preferences and appraiser moral relativism is that, while most of us don’t want to impose our taste preferences on others, there is no logical inconsistency in a relativist judging everyone according to their moral standards, regardless of those people’s moral standards. An appraiser relativist, for instance, can believe murder and torture are wrong, and they can oppose and seek to stop all instances of murder and torture, regardless of whether the people intending to commit those acts think they are morally right or wrong. In short, moral relativism does not entail that you must be okay with other people committing actions that you personally object to. That would, at best, only be true of certain forms of agent relativism.

Given this, there is no contradiction at all between appraiser relativism and objecting to what other people do.

(2) Moral antirealism is not an extreme view and doesn't involve biting any bullets

At 14:14 Pat states that he wants to start with the more extreme person who wants to bite the bullet. I am a moral antirealist, but I reject this framing of the antirealist position. I do not consider moral antirealism an “extreme” position, nor do I think antirealism involves biting any bullets. A moral antirealist can both deny moral realism, and deny that denying moral realism requires them to bite any bullets.

I discuss this problem here. In short: philosophers will often accuse a position of biting the bullet or being an "extreme" position. Such remarks can result in casting doubt on such positions for reasons unrelated to the quality of the arguments for or against the position in question.

(3) It is easy to reject companions in guilt arguments

At 14:22 Pat states that if you deny moral realism you have no reason to also deny epistemic normativity. Pat explicitly draws on Cuneo’s companions in guilt argument, which holds that moral and epistemic realism stand or fall together, such that if you reject moral realism, you must also reject epistemic realism.

Yet Pat states that if you deny moral realism you deny “epistemic normativity.” This is ambiguous. An epistemic antirealism only denies that there are stance-independent epistemic normative facts. It does not mean that they deny there are epistemic facts, or epistemic normativity. Normative realists should be clear: to say that someone denies “normativity” does not make clear whether the person is denying stance-independent normativity or normativity altogether. Pat’s remarks make it sound like the latter, which would not be an accurate characterization of what an epistemic antirealist denies.

In any case, I am a normative antirealist: I deny both moral and epistemic realism. I also maintain that this is not an extreme position, does not involve biting any bullets, and has absolutely no negative consequences. In fact, I don’t even think there are any good arguments against this position. Cuneo’s companions in guilt argument is not a strong argument: one can accept the parity premise and simply deny epistemic realism without any problem. I already denied it before I ever heard of the companions in guilt argument.

Companions in guilt arguments only derive much force if we are inclined to think epistemic realism is a strong position, but I don’t. I think epistemic realism is just as implausible as moral realism. So saying that denying moral realism would require denying epistemic realism is like saying “If you deny dragons exist, you also have to deny unicorns exist.” Even if that were true, it’s no problem: you can deny dragons and unicorns exist.

At 15:29 Pat claims that those who reject Cuneo’s argument (presumably on the grounds of denying epistemic realism, not the parity premise) are left with an “epistemic realism” according to which there is “no such thing as a good argument.”

This is not true. An epistemic antirealist can think there are good and bad arguments. They just don’t think there are stance-independent epistemic facts such that some arguments are epistemically better or worse than others independent of our goals, values, and desires. It does not follow that there aren’t facts about which arguments are good or bad relative to one or another of different epistemic frameworks. For comparison, we would probably agree that there are no objective facts about which food tastes good or bad. That is, we are not gastronomic realists. Does it follow that if there are no stance-independent gastronomic facts about which food is good or bad that there is no such thing as “good food”? No. Of course not. Food can be good or bad according to different people’s food preferences.

The normative antirealist can maintain that there are “good arguments” for antirealism relative to the goal of having true beliefs; they would simply deny that there are epistemic facts which entail that we ought to comport our epistemic practices in such a way so as to optimize for true beliefs. In short: epistemic antirealism is not self-defeating, does not entail there are no good or bad arguments, and does not entail that there are no good arguments for antirealism itself.

Unfortunately, Pat does not present any good objections to moral antirealism here. Moral antirealism, and normative antirealism more generally, don’t entail skepticism.