Introduction

I recently came across an article written by an individual who goes by the name of ‘Philosophical Indy’ that accuses me of various ridiculous things. The major points made are:

1) That I misrepresent the field of meta-ethics through an anti-metaphysical stance.

2) That I am a Moral Subjectivist/Relativist.

3) That I align myself with Wittgenstein, the pragmatists, and transcendental idealism.

4) That my employment of transcendental idealism is insufficient to establish realism.

There are, however, many other minor quips made that will disperse with as well.

The structure of this post is to largely pick out the points of the article that I take contention with and explain one-by-one why they are uncharitable or flat-out wrong.

I am unsure who this author is, but they betray their lack of research and knowledge with regards to my positions and the areas in which I am speaking.

First Section

I believe the problem begins to seep in when Rem constantly denies that metaethics (and moral realism by extension) deals with metaphysics or ontology. Rem, because of his allegiance to transcendental idealism, Wittgenstein, and pragmatism, has to go for this anti-metaphysics stance.

To begin, I have never argued that meta-ethics as a field of study cannot be concerned with ontological and metaphysical questions—this would be patently absurd.

First, one of the most interesting meta-ethical questions that I have spoken of and concerned myself with is the role that reasons play in the process of moral motivation. To this end, I am sympathetic to Thomas Nagel’s conception of ethics as ‘metaphysical ethics’. Fundamental ethics is to be revealed by the structure by which rational agents engage with the project of practical reason. This structure is then to be seen as metaphysically necessary (depending how strong we wish ‘necessary’ to mean). This account of ethics as something inherently about the being of the human constitution and the way that it is structured (perhaps biologically) is something clearly metaphysical. This is certainly a research area in the field of meta-ethics. To suggest I think that meta-ethics cannot be metaphysical is completely unfair characterization of my views.

Second, it is true that the main subsections of meta-ethics with which I concern myself are either epistemological—tending to do with the epistemic structure of the human cognition and the necessary constraints that these upon our experience—or semantic—having to do with the truth-value of ethical sentences and the semantical role of their constituent parts. However, this is to say nothing about how the view the entire field of meta-ethics. It is invalid to argue that because an individual engages primarily with a singular area of a domain that they believe that this singular area is the limit of the domain. I full well recognize the primary role that metaphysics plays within the field of meta-ethics.

Next, it is unclear what is exactly meant by my “allegiance to transcendental idealism, Wittgenstein, and pragmatism.” For one thing, I fail to see how these views can be reconciled with one another in any simple manner (and I certainly have never undergone the task of attempting to do so). One need only reflect on the fact that Kant’s entire project rests upon a correspondence theory of truth (under the traditional reading), while the pragmatists emphatically reject such a conception.

At times I have likely called myself a “pragmatist” (in the widest sense of the term) to be sure; though this usually is simply a statement of my rejection of correspondence and coherence theories of truth and highlighting the important role that normativity plays in an individual’s adherence to a theory of truth (in this regard, then, it would be best to say that I share the ‘spirit’ of pragmatism). Other than this, however, it would wrong to ascribe to me any of the positive views of most of the popular pragmatists. I accept many of their negative arguments against traditional views (e.g. James’ rejection of Evidentialism, Peirce’s rejection of the correspondence theory of truth, etc.); however, it is incredibly rare I would ascribe myself one of their positive theories.

It is more understandable that one would believe me to be a transcendental idealist due to my constant employment of the first Critique in establishing necessary epistemic norms. However, this is merely one statement of a very broad argumentative structure that necessitates the existence of such norms. I have employed a variety of other authors for the same purpose who are certainly not transcendental idealists. For example, I have oft given Husserl’s argument against psychologism in Logical Investigations, as well as Paul Boghossian’s argument in New Essays on the A Priori. In all these cases I am not always accepting the logical conclusion of the arguments (if one exists) but highlighting a necessary structure that refutes ultimate skepticism and an instrumentalist conception of normativity. I do not identify as Kantian, nor do I accept his dogmatic metaphysics (if we choose to interpret him as such).

I am baffled by the ascription of my allegiance to Wittgenstein. I have only ever read the Tractatus, a text which I emphatically reject and have argued against many times on stream. I have yet to read Philosophical Investigations; however, being familiar with the general themes and arguments, I reject very large portions of Wittgenstein’s arguments. I am unsure why the author believes myself to be a Wittgensteinian.

Unfortunately, and I have to agree with Destiny here, Rem’s take on metaethics and moral realism is controversial or, at the very least, not well known or obvious, and, as pointed out above, his view threatens to make “moral realism” compatible with moral subjectivism. And I would like to make explicit here a reasonable assumption I am making while writing this post: any “realism” that can allow moral subjectivism/relativism is not meaningfully realist

The major thesis of the author’s first section is that I am confusing moral realism and cognitivism and playing down the importance of metaphysics in meta-ethics (which I have explained is untrue above). This is an objection and issue that has been raised to me countless times, and countless times I have had to give the same response: I recognize that ‘moral realism’ has a generic usage within the general philosophical community having to do with the ontological reality of the terms in moral propositions. This is not lost on me, nor do I deny this; however, and as I have said many times, I utilize the phrase ‘moral realism’ as it is used in the meta-ethical literature having to do with the companions-in-guilt (CIG) argument. I employ the term moral realism instead of cognitivism because I recognize that, strictly speaking, moral error theory is a species of cogntivism and not non-cognitivism. However, the CIG works (I believe) equally well against the moral error theorist, as well as the non-cognitivist. As such, I designate moral realism as those views that are able to withstand the CIG argument.

I understand that this is confusing and perhaps a poor naming decision on my part. However, I think it’s vital to recognize that I utilized the term ‘moral realism’ years ago when I had little experience dealing with laymen with no philosophy background. It is very standard in philosophical literature that one can use terms that have orthodox meanings in other contexts as terms with new meanings for the new context. One need only reflect on the countless ways that ‘universal’, ‘a priori’, and ‘analytic’ have been used over the past 400 years of philosophical thought.

Perhaps more salient is that my philosophical training is primarily in the philosophy of science, where scientific realism can come in (usually) three species: semantic realism, epistemic realism, and metaphysical realism. I have employed (essentially) the same taxonomy to moral realism: the type of realism Destiny and the author discusses is metaphysical realism; however, I am chiefly concerned with moral realism as a species of semantic realism, dealing with the semantic make-up of both moral claims and the constituents therein.

To summarize, I recognize that the term has a different normal usage, and perhaps it was unfortunately named (though it has precedence in the literature). However, this point says nothing about either my own ethical views regarding the entirety of meta-ethics, nor about my knowledge on meta-ethics. The term was introduced in the context of the CIG argument as a pragmatic tool to create a set of views including both non-cogntivism and moral error theory, and it has since persisted. An attempt to abandon the term now would lead to further confusion. As such, I constantly define moral realism and do not ever try to argue that there is no other correct usage of the term ‘moral realism’.

These comments largely dispense with nearly all of the author’s points. I think this indicates the author is either behaving uncharitably towards myself, or they simply inadequately did their research on my views. If one is to write an entire article trying to characterize my views and chastise my usage of philosophical terminology, I would hope they would take the time to ensure their information is accurate.

Whether he uses the label or not, it seems to me that Rem is espousing some sort of minimal realism.

Once more, I have said countless times (even in the streams that the author himself links in the article) that I do not (generally) posit any positive normative ethical views, or views relating to the metaphysical status of moral claims. I have said explicitly many times that, in my discussions online, I am nearly always assuming a neutral stance towards Moral Subjectivism and Moral Objectivism.

In fact, the author claims:

After all, subjectivism, as it’s generally understood, also denies noncognitivism and error theory. More awkwardly, I heavily suspect that subjectivism is closer to Rem’s actual view.

Despite the fact I do not often discuss it on stream, I would identify myself as a Moral Objectivist (quite ardently too). Whenever I am asked what ‘normative framework’ I ascribe to, I usually hint towards the fact that I have a lot of sympathy with contemporary deontological models, and specifically would identify myself as a Parfitian. I can think of no other combination that is more juxtaposed to a Subjectivist model of ethics.

I do not usually discuss this topic on stream because I feel it would be irresponsible to advocate for or discuss an area of philosophy I feel I still do not have an adequate amount of knowledge and experience in. I have read many books on normative ethics; however, I still have countless doubts about certain views and am still exploring and reaching my own conclusions in this area. This applies equally well to the debate between Subjectivism and Objectivism: I heavily leans towards, as of now, Objectivism, but am very open to possibility (as with most things) that it would turn out to be false.

Once more, the author has failed to research and take the time to investigate my actual views on the issues. Instead, they spend the rest of the section attempting to figure out just why I am a ‘Subjectivist’, which, once more, I certainly am not.

To make my point, if one were to go around a random philosophy department that wasn’t heavily indoctrinated by Wittgenstein or Hilary Putnam (“Hilary Pukeman”), it’s likely that any given philosophy professor will take the debate between moral realism and anti-realism to have some metaphysical component that cannot be overlooked.

Leaving aside the point regarding the status of ‘moral realism’ in departments (which I’ve already addressed), the author is clearly implying that my philosophy department is “heavily indoctrinated by Wittgenstein or Hilary Putnam.” I will only mention once that I think the author’s decision to disparage a recently deceased, universally respected philosopher is quite disgusting. Hilary Putnam is one of the few philosophers I am familiar with who, as time went on, was incredibly open to changing their views on substantive philosophical issues, as well as being one of the most charitable philosophers I know of.

On the assertion of indoctrination, I can only laugh: I have never taken a course with a “Wittgensteinian”, nor have I taken a course with a pragmatist. Being trained primarily in the philosophy of science, the majority of my professors are very ardent defenders of realism of all sorts (semantic, metaphysical, and epistemological). My own anti-realist views (on a variety of topics) come from my own investigations into philosophy.

It should be pointed out that the majority of my philosophical thought comes from self-investigation, rather than adopting the views of those at my department. This comes from my innately skeptical nature and my knowledge that many people in philosophical circles are rather dogmatic when it comes to philosophical positions.

So why the discrepancy between Rem and Destiny, myself, the philosophy professors I’ve talked to, and the philosophy texts that I’ve read? Why can we all see eye to eye with each other but be rather excluded from Rem’s handling of the topic? Is Rem just operating on some super high level of philosophy and going above the head of people from Destiny to myself to philosophy professors? Do we have to delve more into the literature to catch up to Rem’s understanding of the issue? While I don’t doubt that Rem studies the topic, I don’t think the problem here is a huge disparity in knowledge between myself (or Destiny) and Rem.

In case the reader has forgotten, we can dismiss basically all points being made in the paper given that they misunderstand my interpretation of the meta-ethical field; however, I do want to draw attention to the statement that “I [the author] don’t think the problem here is a huge disparity in knowledge between myself (or Destiny) and Rem.”

I know nothing of the author in all honesty, so I can’t make claims about the difference in knowledge. Their ‘About Us’ page on their website indicates they are a “philosophy graduate”; however, I am unsure whether this refers to being a graduate student, or whether it refers to having a BA in philosophy. I would lean towards the latter.

However, with regards to Destiny, this is an absolutely asinine thing to claim. Destiny readily admits he has read nothing in philosophy asides from a single book from Bertrand Russell that I recommended to him. He constantly conflates different ethical theories and struggles to engage in philosophical discussions (as basically any layman does) due to the unfamiliarity with philosophical terminology and general methodology. Destiny, however, is extremely good at engaging with you and serving as a sponge to absorb a clearly defined arguments with clearly defined terms; hence, it is possible to engage with him in overall conversations. Yet, beyond this, it is ridiculous to ascribe to him any knowledge of meta-ethics besides information given to him by a few people over the past few years when they have gone on stream. This isn’t disparaging to Destiny (I don’t think), because this is something he seems more than willing to admit himself.

Further, I’m worried Rem at times treats his knowledge of the topic as the default or non-controversial take and uses it to posture people’s objections into silence (this is what I think happened in his recent debate with Destiny when it came to coherentism, but obviously coherentism is much more prominent than any sort of minimal realism).

Like I have said before, very few of my positions are positive. As such, I try to be very careful before ascribing to myself any position. However, I will treat argumentative moves as generally prominent (hence my earlier remarks regarding Kant, Husserl, and Boghossian), because they almost always are.

The view I have with regards to epistemic realism within epistemic normativity (which is all that I am really discussing with figures like Destiny anymore) I give my arguments with an aura of authority because that position quite literally is the universal default. I can think of no prominent philosopher in the course of the past 500 years who would reject the position I hold in this area. There are certain backwater philosophers who work in the area of meta-epistemology that disagree; however, it is possible to find objectors to any possible view ever. With regards to moral realism (cognitivism minus moral error theory), this is also the predominant view in philosophy. But, even if it weren’t, I try not to justify it with reference to authority (because there are objectors) but instead on the basis of the argument instead. Appeal to authority is made in the epistemic case where true engagement in impossible.

I emphatically agree.

The problem is which philosophers Rem is drawing from and treating as the center of the discussion, as well as the views of the philosophers he’s glossing over. As hinted at earlier, I think Rem ignores metaphysics due to some allegiance to Wittgenstein and many pragmatists, who eschew traditional metaphysics or tend to be anti-metaphysics, but this isn’t enough to capture Rem’s esoteric view. Instead, we can look to Hilary Putnam. Rem has made it no secret that he enjoys Hilary Pukeman’s work, along with other pragmatist or pragmatist-adjacent philosophers (Rem has espoused Quine’s holism and disgusting web in a debate about epistemology and has cited Charles Sanders Peirce positively).

As I’ve already said, I make no real allegiance to most of the people that the author mentions. Though it may be true that, in general, I have a slight disdain towards certain areas of metaphysics as often being ‘useless’ (or ‘unpragmatic’), it’s wrong to root this belief in Putnam’s works, who I draw mostly on for my picture of normativity. Further, while I admire Peirce’s theory of truth, I reject most other conclusions that he makes (including his ultimate pragmaticist formulation of truth).

Well, Pukeman specifically is a source of a lot of this confusion, with him arguing that we should do away with the distinction between objective vs subjective.

This is an incredibly controversial statement to make about Putnam, not least because Putnam’s views on the issue of our access to knowledge in the ‘external world’ changed over the course of his lifetime. Further, it may be argued that ‘objectivity’ is sacrificed with an abandonment of a correspondence picture of truth (which I endorse), but this is simply to point out that the notion of ‘objectivity’ is only going to make sense relative to a set of epistemic norms. For example, if a motivational set of norms does not consist in reference in relation to truth, then it becomes largely to miss the point to claim that “objectivity becomes subjectivity” in the traditional sense. This is really just an acknowledgement that there is an underlying epistemic dispute to do with the semantic conception of truth. That this entails ‘subjectivism’ presupposes a certain notion of ‘subjectivism’ that must be clearly explained first.

It is completely false to claim that under my own beliefs that “we should do away with the distinction between objective vs. subjective.” I’ve never believed that, and it’s not totally clear what the author even means by this. If we take two of thinkers that the author believes I’ve “alligned” myself with as examples, one will even see that there is still an important distinction to be made between the objective and subjective.

In the case of Peirce, for example, objectivity shall consist in the ideal of scientific progression towards a given set of ideas. Anything that divorces from such a set is inherently subjective and cannot be considered true universally (the only important sense of truth there is). In what way this view prohibits a distinction between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’, I am unsure.

In the case of Kant, it need only be noted that he repeatedly draws a distinction between objective validity and subjective validity throughout his Critiques. Once more, I am at a loss as to what the author means by the idea that we completely forego with the distinction.

He went on to give surreptitious defenses of relativism while proclaiming he wasn’t committed to relativism and the like (see Paul Boghossian’s critique of Pukeman in Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism). Past the muddy waters Pukeman creates by trying to do away with crucial distinctions, his defense of relativism makes sense, given pragmatism’s friendly relations with relativism (by which I mean an inter-subjectivism). When William James came around with his pragmatism, the positivists critiqued it for amounting to subjectivism. Related to this charge, the pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty was a relativist (see Boghossian’s Fear of Knowledge and Maria Baghramian’s Relativism).

Ignoring again the ascription of Putnam’s views to my own, I find it funny that the author is utilizing Boghossian’s book as a supposed refutation or argument for the necessity of subjectivism. It is ironic in the fact that Paul Boghossian is one of my favorite authors, and I likely am more sympathetic with his positions than either Putnam or Peirce.

Before, I also mentioned that there are philosophers who Rem is ignoring or putting less into focus. Now, I’m not saying he doesn’t read or not value their work, but, from what I’ve heard him say, he acts as if these authors’ metaphysics aren’t a big part of the discussion.

They are not part of the discussion because my conversations with Destiny et al. are almost always concerned with the CIG argument or the nature of normativity. I rarely discuss anything else in the realm of meta-ethics, so I am unsure why they would be relevant when what is under discussion (as I urge over and over again in my conversations) is the truth-aptness of moral statements.

The same remarks go for, though I’ve never seen Rem mention it, Michael Huemer’s Ethical Intuitionism. It’s clear, concise, and forcefully argued, and Huemer does not shy away from metaphysics. When compared to the “realism” that Rem defaults to and how compelling it is, it doesn’t come close to matching Huemer’s realism.

Again, this only makes sense if you operate outside of my narrow definition of ‘moral realism’ that is concocted for the purpose of discussions on normativity, as well as the CIG argument. Further, having read Huemer’s work (a while ago), I’m surprised how popular it is given that what he says is largely trivial when taken in breadth and won’t be rejected by most philosophers unless you interpret what he says in a logically stronger fashion. However, it’s not a topic that interests me overall, and I am not knowledgeable enough on Huemer specifically.

To finish this section, let me make it clear that I don’t think Rem is committed to relativism/subjectivism or other postmodern trappings simply because his sympathies lie with pragmatism. I do think, however, that his influences and epistemic positions heavily count against him obviously being a realist, and, if anything, they point in the opposite direction.

They don’t point in the opposite direction, and are perfectly consistent with even extreme forms of moral realism like Naturalism. I am sympathetic to aspects of pragmatic thought, but no more than other philosophical areas.

I am a moral realist (in all sense of the word), but would be a Non-Naturalist. I rarely discuss this topic for reasons mentioned above.

The author has drawn ridiculous conclusions on the basis of insufficient research and faulty premises/rules of inference.

Second Section

In the next section, the author is primarily interested to argue that my utilization of Kant’s transcendental arguments are illegitimate against Destiny’s skepticism due to the fact that Kant’s views are largely associated with skepticism.

Another humorous point is that the author begins the section with a quote that details Frege’s fundamental issue with Kant (that of psychologism), as though this would be something I wouldn’t agree with. If you would listen to any of my talks or even consult my Youtube channel, you would find out that of any philosopher, I am no more sympathetic than to Gottlob Frege. (I have two highly technical videos on his theory of truth and proper names on my channel). This just highlights once more the author’s ineptitude to do his research before pumping out this article.

With regards to Kant, the author says:

I’ve… taken umbrage with Rem’s flippant treatment of the possibility of transcendental idealism’s skeptical implications

Once again, nowhere have I ever argued that it is not a popular interpretation of Kant to treat him as largely skeptical. In fact, if one examines the historiography of Kantian thought, one finds that the predominant view up until the 20th century was that Kant’s line of thought largely did lead to a form of solipsism. A primary concern with German Idealist thought was to correct this perceived consequence.

However, this is not the interpretation of Kant that I operate with, and I have said this before as well. I read Kant’s treatment of the noumena and phenomena (or appearances and things-in-themselves) as a methodological program. In other words, when one considers ‘noumena’, one is considering the objects in our experience from a transcendental perspective, and when one considers ‘phenomena’, one is considering these exact same objects from an empirical perspective. Thus, there is no skepticism to be had, since appearances really are objects for human beings. This line of thought is the predominant school of thought in contemporary Kantian scholarship, and it comes from Henry Allison.

Thus, I am not dismissing the Kantian skeptical interpretation; however, the way that I frame Kant’s arguments are such that they refute skepticism. I do not present the arguments in the way that the skeptical interpretation does. Whether Kant does or does not actually operate under the methodological program is an exegetical question that is of absolutely no concern in an argument presented to someone for the necessity of the existence of necessary epistemic conditions.

The author’s long excerpt from BonJour is irrelevant given that it is objecting to a different interpretation of Kant than the one I repeatedly present. I have zero disagreements with BonJour on this point.

Perhaps the most ridiculous part of the article is the following:

Now I want to turn my attention to arguing against the attempt at establishing a respectable realism through Kantian philosophy. To do so, I will be giving an argument by Laurence BonJour, but, before I do, I would ask that one look back to the quote that started off this section. That quote came from Jerrold Katz’s Realistic Rationalism, and I think it’s a devastating critique of those who take on this aspect from Kant. Explicitly stated, this kind of Kantian philosophy may just amount to psychologism.

The author is thus ascribing to me a form of psychologism.

Considering my two favorite philosophers are (early) Husserl and Frege, the author is far off the mark with this claim. In no way do I ascribe to any form of psychologism, and I agree with both Frege’s refutation of psychologism in the Grundlagen, as well as Husserl’s refutation in the prolegomena Logical Investigations.

Once more, this betrays the author’s lack of charity and/or ability to do research. I’ve stated on multiple occasions (on Destiny’s streams as well) my adherence to early Husserl’s argument against psychologism.

In fact, the ascription of psychologism to myself highlights how misguided the author’s entire article is: I utilize Husserl’s anti-psychologistic argument in Logical Investigations quite often to serve the exact same purpose as the argument given from Kant’s Critique. Both are meant to establish necessary truths about experience. For Kant these are forms of our cognition, etc.; for Husserl these are theoretical necessities that differ from instrumental utilizations. Both are essential in that they point to an aspect of rationality that is part of pure reason itself.

The Author’s Conclusion

Rem’s treatment of metaethics or moral realism as being divorced from metaphysics is too blunt.

The author deliberately (?) misrepresents my views on meta-ethics and failed to do any real research on my usage of ‘moral realism’ in the context of the CIG argument.

I view Rem as implicitly raising Pukeman’s attack on the dichotomy between objective vs subjective and the like, as well as thinking such a move should be easily accepted.

It is still unclear to me what is meant by this dichotomy and the author doesn’t define these terms or even put effort into an explanation of what is meant by this.

Further, I have never utilized Putnam’s arguments against the distinction.

[T]ranscendental idealism does raise genuine skeptical worries. To act as if this is an opinion of dumb, unread people is to act disingenuously (to ignore the problem protects Kantian philosophy from a bad image) or perhaps ignorance on Rem’s part.

The form of Kantian philosophy I am presenting is a direct objection to skepticism is not capable of being objected to in the fashion the author presents.

My exasperation with people who reject the arguments comes not from their ‘protecting Kantian philosophy’; it comes from my belief that the rejection of the argument necessarily entails ultimate skepticism, which is patently absurd. I have no stake in protecting ‘Kantian philosophy’, whatever that means.

With regards to the author’s suggestion, I would suggest that this article betrays the author’s own ignorance on Kantian scholarship given that they failed to recognize the more popular and significant interpretation of Kant in the last century.

Rem’s “realism” is compatible with subjectivism/relativism (perhaps of a moderate form)

It is just as compatible with Moral Objectivism.

[T]he pragmatic philosophers he draws from are plagued by subjectivist/relativistic tendencies due to their epistemology and disdain for metaphysics, and so the case for a Pukeman follower being a realist becomes weaker.

First, I am not a Putnam follower. Secondly, my arguments against epistemic and moral anti-realism are not rooted in pragmatism, but a variety of thinkers who would certainly never qualify as ‘pragmatists’.

[T]ranscendental idealism does not provide a basis for realism. It limits itself to appearances, not reality.

Under the interpretation I have explained many times before, ‘apperances’ and ‘reality’ are simply two different methodologies of looking at the same ontological entity (or entities).

Original article: https://philosophyindy.wordpress.com/2020/01/07/questioning-rem-the-bath-bois-moral-realism/