Buch, Englisch, 302 Seiten, GB, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 220 mm, Gewicht: 450 g
Reihe: Analytica
A Metaethical Application of Grounding
Buch, Englisch, 302 Seiten, GB, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 220 mm, Gewicht: 450 g
Reihe: Analytica
ISBN: 978-3-88405-119-1
Verlag: Philosophia Verlag
In recent years, grounding has become an essential part of the metaphysician’s toolkit. In this book, grounding is put to work by applying the grounding framework to the metaethical debate. Starting with the common intuition that objects have normative properties in virtue of having other properties, we can ask what kind of relation this in-virtue-of relation is. Since this question is often neglected in the metaethical debate, this book closes a significant gap by proposing that the grounding relation is the desired relation.
In the course of the book, it is shown that grounding fits the core characteristics of the desired relation better than other candidate relations such as supervenience, constitution and composition. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that applying the grounding framework to the metaethical debate leads to interesting reformulations
of standard debates in metaethics and provides useful new insights and arguments, particularly in the debate on atomism and holism.
Since in this book two different areas of analytical philosophy are brought into an interesting and fruitful dialogue, authors from the metaethical debate as well as authors from the grounding debate might benefit greatly from reading it.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
Table of contents
1 Introduction 1
2 The in-virtue-of intuition 9
3 Supervenience and the explanatory challenge 61
Excursus: What are evaluative properties? 93
4 Applying the grounding framework
Grounding as the desired in-virtue-of relation 135
5 Grounding at work
The explanatory challenge revisited 207
6 Conclusion 271
Bibliography 279
Table of illustrations
Illustration 2.1.: Normative and non-normative properties 25
Illustration 2.2.: Strong and weak metaphysical naturalism 32
Illustration 2.3.: Metaethical atomism and holism 56
Introduction
Consider the following claims:
What makes the paintings of William Turner so beautiful is the precise representation of light.
A hiking tour in autumn is especially pleasant in virtue of the bright colors of the leaves.
This dish is delicious in virtue of the combination of sweet and sour components and the sensitive use of spices.
You ought not to torture because torture is wrong. Torture is wrong in virtue of its being cruel and inhuman.
In these examples a common intuition is presented, namely the intuition that objects instantiate normative properties in virtue of instantiating other properties. Without instantiating certain other properties, an object would not instantiate the specific normative properties it does. The instantiation of other properties is somehow necessary for the instantiation of the normative properties. As we might say, the instantiation of other properties brings it about, is responsible for, or makes it the case that the object instantiates the normative properties it does. It is this widely shared “in-virtue-of intuition” with respect to the instantiation of normative properties that functions as the starting point of this book.
Naturally, the first question that comes to mind when considering this in-virtue-of intuition is whether it is actually correct. Basically, there seem to be two ways in which the intuition could be incorrect: if normative properties are never instantiated, then, of course, normative properties cannot be instantiated in virtue of other properties being instantiated. Hence, we have to accept some sort of normative realism – objects do in fact instantiate normative properties – for the intuition to be correct. However, there is also another way in which the intuition could turn out to be incorrect: perhaps sometimes objects instantiate normative properties “just like that” or “brutely”, as we might say. Perhaps there are some cases in which it is not other properties that bring it about that an object instantiates a certain normative property – rather, the object just instantiates the normative property and there is nothing more to say.
In the following I will not argue that the in-virtue-of intuition is in fact correct. I will more or less assume that the intuition is on the right track. My question will rather concern what makes this intuition true. What kind of relation is this “in-virtue-of” or “making” relation that holds between the instantiation of other properties and the instantiation of a certain normative property? It is this question which constitutes the center of this book. In the following I propose an answer to this question by applying a certain framework from metaphysics – namely the grounding framework –to the metaethical debate. Of course, I will also suggest that my proposal works better than the other answers that have been proposed in the metaethical debate. However, I will not provide a straightforward argument for the claim that the desired in-virtue-of relation is in fact the grounding relation. This might initially disappoint certain readers. However, I believe that applying a framework from one philosophical debate to another and thereby reformulating an existing debate is itself a valuable enterprise; besides, I do not stop at this. In the course of the book I show that applying the grounding framework to the metaethical debate leads to valuable metaethical insights and provides us with new and interesting arguments, and this is what makes my rather explorative approach a valuable philosophical approach and strengthens the case for grounding.
With regard to contents, I will proceed as follows: the second chapter takes up the in-virtue-of intuition and offers some clarifications and preliminaries that seem to be in order before we can start the search for the in-virtue-of relation. In the first section I specify the range of normative properties with which I will be chiefly concerned throughout the book, namely the subclass of evaluative properties. Whereas, for example, being beautiful, being pleasant or being delicious are evaluative properties, being right or being what one ought to do are non-evaluative, normative properties. Then, I point out one important motivation for the search for the in-virtue-of relation. One aspect of John L. Mackie’s famous criticism of evaluative (or moral) realism is a queerness challenge (see Mackie 1990 (1977), ch. 1.9). Mackie claims that evaluative properties are epistemically and metaphysically queer. The second part of the metaphysical queerness challenge focuses on the in-virtue-of relation between evaluative and natural properties. According to Mackie, it is not at all clear what kind of relation this could be and this renders evaluative properties metaphysically suspicious. Hence, if my proposal regarding the desired in-virtue-of relation turns out to be a satisfying account of it, at least one argument against evaluative realism can be rebutted. As I have already made clear, this is not my main motivation for writing this book, but rebutting an argument against evaluative realism would definitely contribute to making this endeavor a worthwhile one. In the third section of the chapter, I go on to develop what I will call the (natural) base thesis that seems to lie at the heart of the in-virtue-of intuition. Roughly, this thesis says that evaluative properties “need” the instantiation of other (natural) properties to be instantiated at all. In the final section I specify the characteristics of the desired in-virtue-of relation. The in-virtue-of relation is a non-causal determination relation that embodies a relation of metaphysical priority between its relata. As such, it displays certain formal features like, for example, irreflexivity, asymmetry and transitivity. Furthermore, it is closely linked with explanation. The characterization will then serve as a checklist to assess the various proposals for the desired in-virtue-of relation.
The third chapter is devoted to the supervenience relation, as for a long time supervenience has been thought to be the desired in-virtue-of relation. This chapter essentially comprises the classical discussion of supervenience; it may therefore be skipped by those readers who are already familiar with the debate. In this chapter I specify exactly how evaluative properties supervene upon natural properties. Evaluative supervenience is strong, inter-world supervenience. In the following I offer three reasons why supervenience cannot be the desired in-virtue-of relation. The first reason is that evaluative supervenience as it was specified is not specific enough to be the desired relation. The second reason is that the supervenience relation has the wrong formal features and is not fine-grained enough to be the in-virtue-of relation. The third and most important reason is that supervenience is not a relation of meta-physical priority but merely a relation of covariation. As such, supervenience cannot explain but rather needs to be explained. In the last section of the chapter I point out how the explanatory challenge posed by supervenience might be met by invoking the desired in-virtue-of relation and how the explanatory challenge finally carries over to the in-virtue-of relation. The explanatory challenge thus consists of two questions: first, what explains the fact that evaluative properties supervene upon natural properties? And second, what explains the fact that evaluative properties are instantiated in virtue of natural properties? These two questions will be taken up in chapter five. In general, the third chapter provides important insights into the desired relation, even if supervenience turns out to be not the in-virtue-of relation.
The supervenience chapter is followed by a quite comprehensive excursus which focuses on the question of what kind of properties evaluative properties are. Readers who are already familiar with the various views here may skip this excursus and go directly to chapter four where I outline and apply the grounding framework. What I provide in the excursus is an admittedly incomplete survey of different views about evaluative properties rather than a detailed discussion of them. A special focus is placed on response-dependence accounts of evaluative properties, namely dispositionalism and fitting-attitudes accounts that dominate the metaethical discussion on evaluative properties. The survey of different views will prove helpful for the discussions in chapter five. Since several topics that are often discussed with respect to evaluative properties are irrelevant for this purpose—for example, the question whether and how evaluative properties can motivate action or provide reasons for action—they will be ignored in my discussion. Furthermore, I do not endorse a specific view about normative or evaluative properties or facts in the course of this book. I attempt to point out the advantages and disadvantages of (some) particular metaethical accounts with respect to the in-virtue-of relation without finally endorsing one of them in particular. This is part of my explorative approach and it constitutes one of its great advantages—namely, that my discussion is relevant to (almost) everyone in the metaethical debate, regardeless of what her or his favored metaethical account is.
Chapters four and five constitute the heart of the book. In chapter four I put forward my own proposal about the desired in-virtue-of relation. However, I start the chapter by presenting three proposals concerning the desired in-virtue-of relation that are often put forward in the metaethical debate—composition, constitution and realization. I show how Mackie’s queerness challenge can be handled by these suggestions and thereby disclose what might be the rationale behind proposing these relations. I then outline my own proposal, namely that the desired in-virtue-of relation is a grounding relation. In the course of outlining the grounding framework, it becomes clear that grounding very nicely fits the desciption of the desired in-virtue-of relation that was set up in chapter two. Furthermore, I point out how applying the grounding framework leads to a reformulation of the metaethical debate, especially the debate on atomism and holism. Finally, I relate my proposal to the other proposals put forward in the metaethical debate. I argue that composition and constitution fail as candidates for the desired in-virtue-of relation. Realization, in contrast, is a good candidate, but this is mainly due to the fact that it can be understood in terms of grounding. Hence, I come to the conclusion that the grounding framework can be successfully applied to the metaethical debate, that it fits better than competing frameworks, and that we should therefore understand the desired in-virtue-of relation as a relation of grounding. In the end, there is no knock-down argument in favor of grounding. However, in the fifth chapter I complete my explorative approach by showing that applying the grounding framework to the metaethical debate leads to new and interesting metaethical insights and arguments. For these purposes I dive into one detailed debate within the grounding debate—namely the debate about grounding the grounding facts. I start the chapter by taking up the explanatory challenge of chapter three. I show that the first part of the explana-tory challenge can easily be answered by invoking the grounding relation. The focus then is on the second part of the explanatory challenge. The central question is whether the grounding facts themselves are also grounded, or whether they are ungrounded. This constitutes one of the vigorously debated questions within the grounding debate in metaphysics. In the first two sections, I discuss the ungroundedness and the groundedness view and come to the conclusion that the groundedness thesis is the more attractive of the two. If we leave the evaluative grounding facts ungrounded, the problem of fundamentality as well as the natural base problem threatens. The third section is then devoted to the question as to how the grounding facts are themselves grounded. I tentatively outline how an account developed in the grounding debate by Kit Fine and Gideon Rosen could be applied to evaluative grounding facts. On this basis, I develop a new argument to the effect that metaethical holists have serious difficulties with grounding the grounding facts and that this counts significantly against their view. This argument thus shows that applying the grounding framework to the metaethical debate is not just a nice exercise—rather, it is really helpful and therefore worthwhile. Furthermore, I briefly indicate how this argument carries over to the grounding debate. In the following section I examine how different accounts of evaluative properties perform with respect to my suggestion. Here the discussions of the excursus again come into play. I argue that my suggestion is also applicable with respect to non-reductive, simple accounts of evaluative properties but that at least certain reductive accounts benefit more from it.
In the final chapter, I outline certain general lessons that can be drawn from applying the grounding framework to the metaethical debate and provide perspectives on further metaethical and metaphysical research.
Before we begin the search for the in-virtue-of relation, I would like to indicate briefly the distinctive features of this book. Why should philosophers working in the field of metaethics as well as philosophers working in the field of metaphysics be interested in what I am doing? In my book I try to bring these two different areas of analytic philosophy into a fruitful dialogue. One might think that this is not as exciting as it first sounds since one important aspect of metaethics just is the metaphysics of normative properties and facts. However, the metaethical discussion has not yet paid much attention to the relation between natural properties and normative properties and this issue is at the very center of this book. In particular, many authors in the metaethical debate do not seem to have recognized something that is familiar territory in debates on metaphysics, namely that simple supervenience cannot do the job it was originally supposed to do. Numerous discussions that I had while working on this book have confirmed this impression. Thus the question of what kind of relation the in-virtue-of relation is is still open—and this more than 35 years after Mackie has raised it. Furthermore, this is an important question which every moral or normative realist should definitely pay attention to. Thus, this book closes a significant gap in the current metaethical debate on the metaphysics of normative properties and facts. Furthermore, I develop a new and powerful argument against metaethical holism and show how applying the grounding framework to the metaethical debate can lead to further important metaethical insights.
From the perspective of classical metaphysics the book is also of high relevance. In recent years there has been a growing interest in the grounding relation and the relation between normative, evaluative or moral facts and descriptive, non-moral or natural facts is often cited as one important example of a grounding relation (see Audi 2012a; Correia/Schnieder 2012a, p. 1; Fine 2012, p. 37). Currently, much of the work in the grounding debate concerns the grounding relation and its features. Questions of application have so far gained less attention. Hence, the present book can be seen as a step towards attaining this desideratum of the grounding debate, since here the grounding framework is really put to work and is shown to provide useful and interesting results.
I therefore conclude that the present book is of interest for authors from the metaethical debate as well as authors from the grounding debate. However, it is in the nature of such a consolidation of different areas of philosophy that certain parts of the book may seem more interesting to authors coming from one of the two areas than to authors coming from the other. In the following I do my very best to do justice to both areas but of course it will become clear that I cannot mask my metaethical background.
