You’re right that I need to bite the bullet on epistemic norms too and I do think that’s a highly effective reply. But at the end of the day, yes, I think “reasonable” in epistemology is also implicitly goal-relative in a meta-ethical sense—it means “in order to have beliefs that accurately track reality.” The difference is that this goal is so universally shared, so universal across so many different value systems, and so deeply embedded in the concept of belief itself that it feels categorical.
You say I’ve “replaced all the important moral questions with trivial logical ones,” but that’s unfair. The questions remain very substantive—they just need proper framing:
Instead of “Which view is better justified?” we ask “Which view better satisfies [specific criteria like internal consistency, explanatory power, alignment with considered judgments, etc.]?”
Instead of “Would the experience machine be good for me?” we ask “Would it satisfy my actual values / promote my flourishing / give me what I reflectively endorse / give me what an idealized version of myself might want?”
These aren’t trivial questions! They’re complex empirical and philosophical questions. What I’m denying is that there’s some further question—“But which view is really justified?”—floating free of any standard of justification.
Your challenge about moral uncertainty is interesting, but I’d say: yes, you can hedge across different moral theories if you have a higher-order standard for managing that uncertainty (like maximizing expected moral value across theories you find plausible). That’s still goal-relative, just at a meta-level.
The key insight remains: every “should” or “justified” implicitly references some standard. Making those standards explicit clarifies rather than trivializes our discussions. We’re not eliminating important questions—we’re revealing what we’re actually asking.
I agree it’s often helpful to make our implicit standards explicit. But I disagree that that’s “what we’re actually asking”. At least in my own normative thought, I don’t just wonder about what meets my standards. And I don’t just disagree with others about what does or doesn’t meet their standards or mine. I think the most important disagreement of all is over which standards are really warranted.
On your view, there may not be any normative disagreement, once we all agree about the logical and empirical facts. I think it’s key to philosophy that there is more we can wonder about than just that. (There may not be any tractable disagreement once we get down to bedrock clashing standards, but I think there is still a further question over which we really disagree, even if we have no way to persuade the other of our position.)
It’s interesting to consider the meta question of whether one of us is really right about our present metaethical dispute, or whether all you can say is that your position follows from your epistemic standards and mine follows from mine, and there is no further objective question about which we even disagree.
At least in my own normative thought, I don’t just wonder about what meets my standards. [...] I think the most important disagreement of all is over which standards are really warranted.
Really warranted by what? I think I’m an illusionist about this in particular as I don’t even know what we could be reasonably disagreeing over.
For a disagreement about facts (is this blue?), we can argue about actual blueness (measurable) or we can argue about epistemics (which strategies most reliably predict the world?) and meta-epistemics (which strategies most reliably figure out strategies that reliably predict the world?), etc.
For disagreements about morals (is this good?), we can argue about goodness but what is goodness? Is it platonic? Is it grounded in God? I’m not even sure what there is to dispute. I’d argue the best we can do is argue to our shared values (perhaps even universal human values, perhaps idealized by arguing about consistency etc.) and then see what best satisfies those.
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On your view, there may not be any normative disagreement, once we all agree about the logical and empirical facts.
Right—and this matches our experience! When moral disagreements persist after full empirical and logical agreement, we’re left with clashing bedrock intuitions. You want to insist there’s still a fact about who’s ultimately correct, but can’t explain what would make it true.
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It’s interesting to consider the meta question of whether one of us is really right about our present metaethical dispute, or whether all you can say is that your position follows from your epistemic standards and mine follows from mine, and there is no further objective question about which we even disagree.
I think we’re successfully engaging in a dispute here and that does kind of prove my position. I’m trying to argue that you’re appealing to something that just doesn’t exist and that this is inconsistent with your epistemic values. Whether one can ground a judgement about what is “really warranted” is a factual question.
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I want to add that your recent post on meta-metaethical realism also reinforces my point here. You worry that anti-realism about morality commits us to anti-realism about philosophy generally. But there’s a crucial disanalogy: philosophical discourse (including this debate) works precisely because we share epistemic standards—logical consistency, explanatory power, and various other virtues. When we debate meta-ethics or meta-epistemology, we’re not searching for stance-independent truths but rather working out what follows from our shared epistemic commitments.
The “companions in guilt” argument fails because epistemic norms are self-vindicating in a way moral norms aren’t. To even engage in rational discourse about what’s true (including about anti-realism), we must employ epistemic standards. But we can coherently describe worlds with radically different moral standards. There’s no pragmatic incoherence in moral anti-realism the way there would be in global philosophical anti-realism.
You’re right that I need to bite the bullet on epistemic norms too and I do think that’s a highly effective reply. But at the end of the day, yes, I think “reasonable” in epistemology is also implicitly goal-relative in a meta-ethical sense—it means “in order to have beliefs that accurately track reality.” The difference is that this goal is so universally shared, so universal across so many different value systems, and so deeply embedded in the concept of belief itself that it feels categorical.
You say I’ve “replaced all the important moral questions with trivial logical ones,” but that’s unfair. The questions remain very substantive—they just need proper framing:
Instead of “Which view is better justified?” we ask “Which view better satisfies [specific criteria like internal consistency, explanatory power, alignment with considered judgments, etc.]?”
Instead of “Would the experience machine be good for me?” we ask “Would it satisfy my actual values / promote my flourishing / give me what I reflectively endorse / give me what an idealized version of myself might want?”
These aren’t trivial questions! They’re complex empirical and philosophical questions. What I’m denying is that there’s some further question—“But which view is really justified?”—floating free of any standard of justification.
Your challenge about moral uncertainty is interesting, but I’d say: yes, you can hedge across different moral theories if you have a higher-order standard for managing that uncertainty (like maximizing expected moral value across theories you find plausible). That’s still goal-relative, just at a meta-level.
The key insight remains: every “should” or “justified” implicitly references some standard. Making those standards explicit clarifies rather than trivializes our discussions. We’re not eliminating important questions—we’re revealing what we’re actually asking.
I agree it’s often helpful to make our implicit standards explicit. But I disagree that that’s “what we’re actually asking”. At least in my own normative thought, I don’t just wonder about what meets my standards. And I don’t just disagree with others about what does or doesn’t meet their standards or mine. I think the most important disagreement of all is over which standards are really warranted.
On your view, there may not be any normative disagreement, once we all agree about the logical and empirical facts. I think it’s key to philosophy that there is more we can wonder about than just that. (There may not be any tractable disagreement once we get down to bedrock clashing standards, but I think there is still a further question over which we really disagree, even if we have no way to persuade the other of our position.)
It’s interesting to consider the meta question of whether one of us is really right about our present metaethical dispute, or whether all you can say is that your position follows from your epistemic standards and mine follows from mine, and there is no further objective question about which we even disagree.
Really warranted by what? I think I’m an illusionist about this in particular as I don’t even know what we could be reasonably disagreeing over.
For a disagreement about facts (is this blue?), we can argue about actual blueness (measurable) or we can argue about epistemics (which strategies most reliably predict the world?) and meta-epistemics (which strategies most reliably figure out strategies that reliably predict the world?), etc.
For disagreements about morals (is this good?), we can argue about goodness but what is goodness? Is it platonic? Is it grounded in God? I’m not even sure what there is to dispute. I’d argue the best we can do is argue to our shared values (perhaps even universal human values, perhaps idealized by arguing about consistency etc.) and then see what best satisfies those.
~
Right—and this matches our experience! When moral disagreements persist after full empirical and logical agreement, we’re left with clashing bedrock intuitions. You want to insist there’s still a fact about who’s ultimately correct, but can’t explain what would make it true.
~
I think we’re successfully engaging in a dispute here and that does kind of prove my position. I’m trying to argue that you’re appealing to something that just doesn’t exist and that this is inconsistent with your epistemic values. Whether one can ground a judgement about what is “really warranted” is a factual question.
~
I want to add that your recent post on meta-metaethical realism also reinforces my point here. You worry that anti-realism about morality commits us to anti-realism about philosophy generally. But there’s a crucial disanalogy: philosophical discourse (including this debate) works precisely because we share epistemic standards—logical consistency, explanatory power, and various other virtues. When we debate meta-ethics or meta-epistemology, we’re not searching for stance-independent truths but rather working out what follows from our shared epistemic commitments.
The “companions in guilt” argument fails because epistemic norms are self-vindicating in a way moral norms aren’t. To even engage in rational discourse about what’s true (including about anti-realism), we must employ epistemic standards. But we can coherently describe worlds with radically different moral standards. There’s no pragmatic incoherence in moral anti-realism the way there would be in global philosophical anti-realism.