Both Sides Brigades comments on my recent critique and accuses me of doing philosophy on "easy mode"

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Both Sides Brigade (BSB) made some comments about this recent critical response. Let’s have a look.

Someone let me know that Lance Bush just put out a truly gargantuan response to an old post of mine, so I snuck behind his block to check it out and maybe put together some thoughts — but to be honest, when I got the point about 10,000 words in where he condemns “armchair philosophers” for making the “totally unsubstantiated empirical claim” that many people believe there are reasons for action, I just sorta lost the will to live respond. (Although it is admittedly funny that he complains I offer “absolutely no reason at all” for thinking that they do.)

Let’s have a look at what BSB originally said, and what I said in response. BSB initially said this:

Moreover, it isn’t as if the alternate model I’m talking about here is some obscure or controversial way of thinking that was dreamed up just to test the limits of an anti-realist’s imaginative skills — it’s one that millions and millions of people successfully rely on every day to make the exact same sorts of decisions that anti-realists do!

The model BSB is talking about is his particular conception of reasons. BSB isn’t especially clear on the precise content of this model, but it is an account of normative reasons, and characterizes reasons in terms of “counting-in-favor” relations. That is, reasons are considerations that “count in favor” of an action. This is a framing Parfit employs, and it is associated with a broadly anti-reductionist view of reasons, according to which reasons cannot be reduced to or explained in other terms, such as purely descriptive terms. They are, in other words, irreducibly normative. I am operating on the assumption BSB thinks of normative reasons in this way.

What I deny is that this specific account of reasons is one that “millions and millions of people” use “every day.” Many of my positions turn on making this sort of critique:

1. Philosophers come up with a sophisticated, highly theoretical notion involving various conceptual, metaphysical, semantic, and/or other sorts of claims.

2. They then infer that this account has certain theoretic virtues, such as accommodating their intuitions

3. They then infer, on the basis of this, that this conception is part of the ordinary concept associated with use of the term in ordinary language.

4. What I argue is this inference is often misguided. These philosophers are mistakenly generalizing on the basis of how they think to how nonphilosophers think.

This standard line of critique draws a distinction between philosophical accounts of ordinary thought and discourse and the content of ordinary thought and discourse, and argues that philosophers are mistakenly taking the former to be an accurate representation of the latter. There is nothing absurd about this. The extent to which any particular theoretical account of what ordinary people mean or think when they say things is, in fact, an empirical question; it isn’t something philosophers are entitled to presume to be the case without evidence nor can such claims be established using conventional a priori approaches. You cannot draw informed and accurate inferences about population level statistical claims merely by thinking really hard.

It is therefore not very illuminating to say:

[…] he condemns “armchair philosophers” for making the “totally unsubstantiated empirical claim” that many people believe there are reasons for action.

…without making it clear that what I am denying is BSB’s specific account of what it means for there to be a “reason for action”. Without that crucial context, it could look like I am saying something wildly stupid. It might look, for instance, like I’m making the ridiculous claim that people don’t speak of reasons, or wouldn’t say that people “have reasons,” or that I deny outright that there is any way to account for reasons-talk. I don’t think any of those things. I just don’t think BSB’s account captures how ordinary people reason or speak.

Furthermore, I am entirely fine with saying “there are reasons for action” and granting that ordinary people think and would say if asked that “there are reasons for action” as long as we’re clear about what that means and distinguish it from BSB’s specific account…just like e.g., the proponent of a stance-dependent relativist account is fine with saying that people think things are morally wrong, but wouldn’t grant the realist’s semantic thesis that when people make such claims those claims purport to describe stance-independent moral facts. A relativist couldn’t think this; it’s constitutive of such views to hold that moral claims implicitly appeal to stances. And since traditional metaethical positions typically presupposes semantic uniformity, proponents of such views would typically deny that “millions and millions” of people would mean something else when making moral claims. Thus, not only is there nothing absurd about what I said, it’s one of the rare cases in which similar claims are completely typical, if not central to standard analytic metaethics.

So I do deny that people think there are “reasons for action” if by that you mean irreducibly normative reasons. What’s so absurd about that? It is, in fact, true that there is no good evidence “millions and millions” of people employ such a notion. To my knowledge, there are no studies specifically dedicated to addressing this question.

For comparison, imagine if someone claimed that mathematical platonism was true, and then said that “millions and millions of people” employ the notion of mathematical platonism successfully every day when they file their taxes or count how many apples they’ve picked.

It would be entirely reasonable to point out that there aren’t any studies addressing this question, and there isn’t any good empirical evidence that ordinary people are mathematical platonists. Would it be reasonable for the person who claimed millions of people held such a view to say:

when I got the point about 10,000 words in where he condemns “armchair philosophers” for making the “totally unsubstantiated empirical claim” that many people believe numbers exist, I just sorta lost the will to live respond.

Do you see how misleading this would be? It makes it seem like the person who denies that there are “millions and millions” of mathematical platonists is saying something far more extreme and insane.

BSB is doing something like that here. Just totally failing to clearly distinguish between what I am denying and the pragmatic implications of what it would sound like I am denying if one doesn’t provide adequate context.

What I said, and what BSB is balking at, is true: there is no good empirical evidence at all that ordinary people believe in or make use of the concept of irreducibly normative reasons.

Claims about what people mean when they say things and what they think are empirical claims about people’s psychology. If it’s so obvious people employ the technical philosophical concept of a normative reason when they talk about reasons, it should be pretty easy to present some decent empirical evidence for this. I’d be happy to assist in the design of these studies, too, if anyone wants to run them.

The latter remark about how it’s funny that I offer “absolutely no reason at all” is also ridiculous. This would only be funny if it were interpreted to suggest I’m somehow contradicting myself or employing the concepts I’m denying. But I’m not. I employ reasons-talk all the time. I just don’t think reason-talk is used by ordinary people to refer to special irreducibly normative properties, because (a) we have better accounts of what ordinary people mean (b) there’s no good evidence people employ this conception and (c) it’s unintelligible, and generally speaking I lean on the heuristic that ordinary people probably aren’t committed to meaningless nonsense when they reason or say things (though it’s possible they could).

Also, the use of “reason” in this context is an epistemic one, and means something similar to him providing no “arguments” or “evidence” for his position. “Reason” is a polysemous term. Sometimes it refers to causal explanations:

The reason the ground is wet is because it rained

Sometimes it refers to facts that serve as evidence:

The reason we think he committed the murder is that his fingerprints were on the knife.

…and so on. So this wouldn’t even be the right context for the use of the term “reason” in the first place. But even if it were, it’s not as if I don’t use reason talk in normative contexts. I just don’t think such talk requires or typically (among ordinary people) appeals to irreducible normativity. I can and do say things like:

That police officer had no good reason to arrest her.

Or

I think we have good reasons to oppose fraud.

I’ve offered my own account of how to make sense of these locutions without reifying reasons. It’s downright goofy to claim that it’s funny that I use the term “reason.” It almost seems as though BSB can’t distinguish his theoretical accounts of ordinary language from ordinary language itself, as if there just is no difference between the explanans and the explanandum.

I just don’t know, man — it makes perfect sense why people with wildly implausible views would want to do philosophy on easy mode like this, but for the life of me, I really can’t see why anyone else finds it appealing. I’m beginning to think the real appeal of “quietism” is just the power to remain “quiet” about things that would make your position hard to defend, and very non-quiet about everything else.

This is silly for numerous reasons. First, the last claim is an attempt to be cute about “quietism,” but it doesn’t land at all. BSB’s remark suggests I am somehow “quiet” about things that would make my position hard to defend. No examples are given. What, exactly, would make my position hard to defend that I am avoiding or being quiet about? This suggestion is baseless. I am one if not the most active, prolific, and enthusiastic proponents of antirealism, and go out of my way to seek people to debate and interact with.

With respect to the claim that my views are "wildly implausible”, I don’t agree. BSB seems unable to distinguish what he thinks from what may or may not be the case independent of what BSB thinks. BSB, like many moral realists, seems to operate on the assumption that the realist’s account is “plausible,” and the antirealist’s account is “implausible,” and that the dialectical space in which we operate is one in which this is established. The only question is whether we antirealists can present enough defeaters to overcome how “implausible” our views are. But I don’t grant this. I not only reject BSB’s view, I also consider it wildly implausible.

Regarding BSB’s remark that he can’t for the life of him figure out why anyone else finds my approach appealing, here’s a suggestion: ask them. I know BSB seems to have an aneurism whenever I point out that something is an empirical question, but sometimes you’ve got to point out the obvious enough times for it to sink in. This is no different. If you want to know why people think something, the most obvious and natural thing to do is to ask them.

However, the most objectionable remark here is the suggestion that I do things on easy mode:

[…] would want to do philosophy on easy mode like this

On what basis does BSB think I’m doing anything on “easy mode”? How is anything I’ve said or done easy? How would BSB even know?

This is the sort of baseless insult people make when they have little of substance to say, and just want to take jabs at another person. That or they are just extremely ignorant about the other person’s views, how challenging their approach is, and what is required to get to the point where one can even effectively employ their approach.

Let’s take a look at the situation I am in. I take an interdisciplinary approach to philosophy and psychology. This involved me pursuing graduate education in both disciplines. I worked hard to get into one of the top terminal masters programs in philosophy, Tufts University. I did well enough to then get into Cornell University to do my PhD in psychology. Does BSB think getting into these programs was easy?

I never felt entirely at home in either discipline. Professors often criticized my work in philosophy for being too psychological, while psychologists often had little interest or understanding of my work in psychology. I was told I shouldn’t even be in one of these programs, had graduate students suggest that I leave because I’m not a good fit, and been insulted, criticized, sidelined, or simply ignored. That isn’t to say I didn’t have great experiences and positive, productive encounters at both institutions, but when you do work outside the mainstream and conventional approaches, you can find yourself treated quite poorly by at least some people. You also run into people who not only reject your work, but often don’t seem to understand it at all, provide little productive engagement, and often end up being rude or insulting towards you.

And because both institutions were devised towards conventional specialization within the respective fields, there was little in the way of active efforts to encourage or provide training in the interdisciplinary approach I favored. I liked experimental philosophy, but due to its polarizing reputation, I was discouraged from using it in my writing sample or focusing too much on it. And because there were no courses on the subject, and nobody to mentor me on my particular interests, I had to develop my views more or less on my own, and much of what I studied required working outside the formal education at either institution. This eventually culminated with me developing an interest in experimental metaethics, which I studied for my PhD. Shortly before and then during my dissertation, a series of events unfolded:

1. I suffered several serious and debilitating medical issues that impacted both my physical and mental health, culminating in a permanent, severe, debilitating medical condition. I’ve talked about the details on my YouTube channel at times, but the short version is that I have severe tinnitus, chronic pain, and a handful of other issues.

2. My dissertation project was scooped. Somebody published a paper that required me to abandon my project and start over from scratch.

3. After beating cancer and going through chemotherapy, my mom died of medical complications. I was barely able to make it to her in time to see her. This was a few months after I was supposed to be working on my dissertation.

4. COVID hit, and I lived in near total isolation, with little interaction other than with my wife, for several years. Constant moves led to social isolation and financial instability and have left me with virtually no friendships with anyone in person or any social life at all.

In spite of all of that, I managed to come up with a new idea, and spent the next few years furiously reading a massive amount of literature in metaethics, experimental philosophy, metaphilosophy, measurement and methodology in psychology, and various related works across a variety of fields, as needed. My studies touched on and led me to encounter work in metaphysics, epistemology, metaethics, metaphilosophy, philosophy of language, linguistics, history, language cognition, evolution, anthropology, statistics, and probably some other fields I can’t remember. Why? Because I felt it was necessary to draw on a broad, interdisciplinary host of considerations to support the interrelated set of theses I wanted to defend in the dissertation.

This research culminated in reading hundreds of papers and numerous books, conducting more than a dozen studies, and writing a dissertation draft that was so long I had to shorten the official version and move most of the content I’d written to the supplements. Including all supplements and appendices, the final version was 1,249 pages. It was the culmination of a strenuous, backbreaking effort that left me burnt out. I finished looking older with greying hair. And I am proud of what I accomplished. It’s a sprawling, interdisciplinary work that was anything but easy. I could have done something easier and shorter, but I chose not to. I chose to do things the hard way. That work is part of the backbone of what led me to develop the views I now defend on my blog and YouTube channel. It was the end result of a decade of graduate study across two graduate programs. And during this entire period I was struggling with grief, pain, discomfort, anxiety, and isolation. Since finishing my dissertation, I’ve had to move several times and suffered yet more setbacks and medical issues.

I finally began blogging and running a YouTube channel. And the views I now defend have only expanded on my initial work through further reading across multiple fields, and by constantly discussing and refining those ideas privately and publicly. I’ve written extensively on my blog and have produced dozens of hours of content on my YouTube channel, including debates with people who disagree, live call-ins on TikTok, interviews, and livestreams where my views are stress tested in real time. Most people who do philosophy don’t do all of this. This isn’t doing this on easy mode.

Having a blog and YouTube channel has been rewarding. But because of the philosophical views I hold, I routinely encounter people who:

• Accuse of lying, pretending, being disingenuous, engaging in bad faith, or otherwise being dishonest. I was accused of “pretending” by someone today (at the time of writing, 6/22/2026)

• Claim my views are “fringe” views, tell me I’ll never have any influence or convince anyone of my “crazy” views, and mock me for having views most philosophers reject

• Accuse me of being a psychopath, sociopath, and so on (this has happened in the comment sections of my own blog and many times elsewhere)

• Suggest that I have conceptual deficiencies or brain damage

• Insult me in a variety of other ways, or make unsubstantiated and false claims about me, including BSB himself, who based his own allegations on nothing other than his impressions and refused to retract those accusations or support them with anything better

Does BSB think defending views that lead you to be constantly insulted, misunderstood, and treated like shit is doing things on easy mode? Does BSB think it’s easy to hold unorthodox views? Is it “easy mode” to take an interdisciplinary approach that requires familiarity with multiple disciplines? I often don’t even pick which philosophical views to endorse from among existing ones, because I don’t find any of them satisfactory. So I’ve opted to develop and defend my own views. Is that doing things on “easy mode”? Is taking a quietistic approach that requires sensitivity to pragmatic considerations, knowledge of the relevant empirical literature, and the occasional requirement to conduct your own studies doing things on “easy mode”?

“Easy mode” is endorsing the most mainstream, widely accepted philosophical views out there. “Easy mode” is patching over every shortcoming in your arguments by appeal to your intuitions, or how things “seem” to you, or what’s “obvious” to you without having to know anything about psychology or linguistics or how ordinary people actually speak or think. Easy mode is making sweeping, presumptuous empirical claims without doing any empirical work to evaluate your claims. Or reading the work of others. Or even caring about such work.

When I began devising empirical hypotheses for my dissertation, e.g., that nonphilosophers don’t interpret questions about metaethics as intended, did I run a study or two?

No. I ran a few dozen studies and gathered thousands of participants across multiple datasets, gathered datasets from other researchers, and then spent years not only conducting quantitative studies but devising and implementing a mixed methods approach that involved both quantitative and qualitative data that required extensive thematic analysis of thousands of written responses. Meanwhile, BSB just balks and scoffs at me for pointing out that he doesn’t have any good empirical evidence “millions and millions” of people think about reasons the way he does. I spent years gathering the evidence to support my claims. How many studies has BSB conducted to support his claim that he’s scoffing at me for rejecting?

Oh, that’s right, absolutely none.

So which one of us, exactly, has been doing things on easy mode? Because it hasn’t been me. And in case BSB needs reminding, I ran and analyzed those studies in nearly constant pain with what sounded like police sirens screaming in my head. I’m sure BSB would have no problem blogging with the equivalent of an active smoke alarm glued to his head and constant, pulsing pain radiating across his face. I’m sure he’d find it super easy, barely an inconvenience.

But leaving that issue aside, even if I were in perfect health and felt absolutely fantastic all the time, the approach I take is anything but easy. I’ve never had the luxury to read some other philosopher’s view and conclude “Yea, that’s right.” I never took the easy path of adopting the orthodox methods and presuppositions of a given field then unthinkingly employed them. Instead, I’ve been actively circumspect about the methods and mainstream practices of both philosophy and psychology, not only questioning them but studying heterodox and critical perspectives on both to try to develop a more cautious and informed perspective. And when you question the very fields you are part of, this often isn’t easy or well-received.

Alienating, heterodox interdisciplinary approaches which you have to develop on your own because existing work in philosophy (and psychology, for that matter) isn’t adequate, and that requires the synthesis of knowledge from multiple disciplines, is pretty much the opposite of easy mode.