I've seen Huemer's name in the literature and...wow, but that's a lot of hand-waving. Do philosophers relax their standards of rigour that badly when merely blogging, as opposed to writing for publication? At least one of my profs would be throwing lots of red ink at that piece.
I'm an anti-realist only partly because of the truth-tracking problem -- I want to see a positive account of morality that gets around Mackie's metaphysical queerness objection, and moral epistemology. Quit slinging mud, realists, and make a case.
I think his analogy to science fails. Morality exists as a set of beliefs, attitudes, and social practices -- what metaethics argues about is whether there's more to it than that. Geology also exists in at least that way, i.e. geologists engage in the social practices of studying rocks and outcrops, arguing and forming beliefs about how they came to be that way, etc. In that case, the objects of their study are taken for granted, given no more than basic sensory experience -- a type of epistemic access we do *not* possess for whatever moral facts there might be out there.
I would say that I'm not sure you should be interpreting the "Moral skeptics argue..." bit as a definition. I read it as him laying out some arguments that are sometimes made by some moral skeptics, and then proceeding to attempt to debunk those arguments.
I am not interpreting him that way. It's not clear to me. My objection isn't that this is part of his definition but that he isn't writing clearly to make it clear that it isn't. I think it's worthwhile to point out when a philosopher is unclear, especially when they are immediately unclear at the outset of a post.
His argument against moral skepticism on the grounds that our unreliable moral sense is a self-defeating position reminds me of Plantiga's old argument against evolution on similar grounds. That, if our sense and reasoning evolved naturally and are therefore susceptible to the inherent error of something that was not designed to be perfect, then we cannot trust the conclusion of those faculties when arguing in favor of evolution. I would reject Heumer's argument for the same reason I reject Plantiga's. Unless you want to reject all of modern science, then you have to accept that, to our best knowledge, our senses are imperfect. The evidence in favor of that is overwhelming. And if they are imperfect, then there really is no reason for us to favor a non-skeptical position with regards to our ability to reason accurately about things.
It's never been clear to me why acceptance of the idea of the unreliability of our senses (even if we accept that it make our position self-defeating) should lead us to a position of greater certainty. If anything, it should just lead us to reject dogmatic skepticism for a more Pyrrhonist position. Suspending judgment on whether we can in fact know whether or not moral truths exist.
Thanks for the pointer to Huemer's screed, since it's shown me I never need to take anything he says seriously again. It's a sad statement on academic philosophy that the same person who produced such a shoddy collection of ad hominem, transparently fallacious and goal-directed reasoning, dime store psychologizing, straw men and so on (and clearly believes it amounts to a substantive argument) is also a credentialed and practicing philosopher. The only worthwhile sequence of words I found was "At some point, rational people should just disregard everything we [philosophers] have to say" (though he went on to taint it with extraneous verbiage); given that Huemer can only speak authoritatively for and about himself here, I fully endorse his advice.
Finally, kudos to you for having the intestinal fortitude to deconstruct Huemer's rant so thoroughly. You certainly gave it a level of serious rebuttal it didn't merit.
I've seen Huemer's name in the literature and...wow, but that's a lot of hand-waving. Do philosophers relax their standards of rigour that badly when merely blogging, as opposed to writing for publication? At least one of my profs would be throwing lots of red ink at that piece.
I'm an anti-realist only partly because of the truth-tracking problem -- I want to see a positive account of morality that gets around Mackie's metaphysical queerness objection, and moral epistemology. Quit slinging mud, realists, and make a case.
I think his analogy to science fails. Morality exists as a set of beliefs, attitudes, and social practices -- what metaethics argues about is whether there's more to it than that. Geology also exists in at least that way, i.e. geologists engage in the social practices of studying rocks and outcrops, arguing and forming beliefs about how they came to be that way, etc. In that case, the objects of their study are taken for granted, given no more than basic sensory experience -- a type of epistemic access we do *not* possess for whatever moral facts there might be out there.
Well argued.
I would say that I'm not sure you should be interpreting the "Moral skeptics argue..." bit as a definition. I read it as him laying out some arguments that are sometimes made by some moral skeptics, and then proceeding to attempt to debunk those arguments.
I am not interpreting him that way. It's not clear to me. My objection isn't that this is part of his definition but that he isn't writing clearly to make it clear that it isn't. I think it's worthwhile to point out when a philosopher is unclear, especially when they are immediately unclear at the outset of a post.
His argument against moral skepticism on the grounds that our unreliable moral sense is a self-defeating position reminds me of Plantiga's old argument against evolution on similar grounds. That, if our sense and reasoning evolved naturally and are therefore susceptible to the inherent error of something that was not designed to be perfect, then we cannot trust the conclusion of those faculties when arguing in favor of evolution. I would reject Heumer's argument for the same reason I reject Plantiga's. Unless you want to reject all of modern science, then you have to accept that, to our best knowledge, our senses are imperfect. The evidence in favor of that is overwhelming. And if they are imperfect, then there really is no reason for us to favor a non-skeptical position with regards to our ability to reason accurately about things.
It's never been clear to me why acceptance of the idea of the unreliability of our senses (even if we accept that it make our position self-defeating) should lead us to a position of greater certainty. If anything, it should just lead us to reject dogmatic skepticism for a more Pyrrhonist position. Suspending judgment on whether we can in fact know whether or not moral truths exist.
There's another solution that circumvents the issues that trouble analytic philosophers: classical pragmatism.
Just a minor thing: in the "banana and lemon" example, you said apple instead of banana (the third time you mentioned the fruit).
Thanks.
Thanks for the pointer to Huemer's screed, since it's shown me I never need to take anything he says seriously again. It's a sad statement on academic philosophy that the same person who produced such a shoddy collection of ad hominem, transparently fallacious and goal-directed reasoning, dime store psychologizing, straw men and so on (and clearly believes it amounts to a substantive argument) is also a credentialed and practicing philosopher. The only worthwhile sequence of words I found was "At some point, rational people should just disregard everything we [philosophers] have to say" (though he went on to taint it with extraneous verbiage); given that Huemer can only speak authoritatively for and about himself here, I fully endorse his advice.
Finally, kudos to you for having the intestinal fortitude to deconstruct Huemer's rant so thoroughly. You certainly gave it a level of serious rebuttal it didn't merit.
This is part one of at least 3 or 4 parts.