Dr. Bush

Some readers of this blog will know that I was working on my PhD in psychology at Cornell. I am pleased to announce that I have officially graduated and have earned my doctorate in social psychology.

I had finished several months ago, but not in time for the official conferral, so the official date got pushed back all the way back to May. So while I’ve been done for a while, I wanted to wait until the official date to make the announcement.

It was a long journey. There were a few serious setbacks I’ll talk about some time. But for now, I’d like to look ahead and focus on the future. That includes building this blog and my channel.

In case you are wondering, my dissertation is titled “Schrödinger’s categories: The indeterminacy of folk metaethics.”

The dissertation presents an empirical case for metaethical indeterminacy, the position that (most) nonphilosophers have no determinate metaethical positions.

Here is the abstract. It's not the most stellar piece of writing, but it gives a sense of what the dissertation is about. I've broken it up into paragraphs for easy of reading:

Metaethics is a field of philosophy that addresses fundamental questions about the nature of morality. One of the central disputes in metaethics is whether moral realism is true. Moral realism is the claim that there are stance-independent moral facts, moral facts that are true independent of the standards or values of individuals or groups, much like scientific facts (e.g., the shape of the earth) aren’t made true by personal preference or cultural consensus. Moral antirealism is the claim that there are no stance-independent moral facts. Research on folk metaethics studies whether ordinary people (i.e., nonphilosophers) endorse realism or antirealism, or speak and think in ways that commit them to one of these views. Some researchers maintain that nearly everyone endorses either realism or antirealism, but not both. Yet most research suggests significant interpersonal and intrapersonal variation in folk metaethics: some people are more inclined towards realism, and others antirealism, while most people are metaethical pluralists: they are moral realists about some moral issues and antirealists about others. Regardless of the account in question, all existing research presumes that there is a determinate fact about whether people are realists or antirealists. I argue that existing evidence does not support this conclusion. Instead, the best account of folk metaethics may be metaethical indeterminacy: ordinary people are neither realists nor antirealists, and neither best explains the way people speak or think. The case for metaethical indeterminacy proceeds in two steps. First, I argue that all published studies on folk metaethics rely on invalid measures. Second, I present empirical evidence that challenges the validity of existing research on folk metaethics and supports metaethical indeterminacy. I evaluate the proportion of people who interpret questions about metaethics as intended, using open response questions, as well as multiple choice questions and Likert scale items. These studies show that most people do not interpret questions about metaethics as researchers intend. I conclude with a study that demonstrates how forced choice paradigms can create the misleading appearance of a genuine pattern of determinate folk philosophical views, even where none plausibly exist.