I am not sure there even are intuitions or seemings of the sort philosophers often talk about, but if I were to weigh in on the matter, I’d have the exact opposite reaction. I can think of few things more obvious than that it doesn’t make any sense to think some goals are more rational or correct than others. Goals are just descriptive facts about agents. They don’t even seem like an appropriate target of evaluation for such judgments. To me, this sounds like saying that someone’s birthday is more rationally warranted.
I also don’t see why denying the objective reality of goodness would undermine inquiry. Why would it? I act in pursuit of my goals. Inquiry is a means of pursuing my goals. I don’t even think it makes sense to talk of things being objectively good, but even if there were objective goods, I would not care about them.
Regarding the last remark: that there’s no “deeply compelling reason to do so,” you go on to say “For one thing: in order for there to be a suitably objective normative reason, normative realism would have to be true!”
But “deeply compelling” is not, to my mind, identical to “objective.” I don’t believe I or anyone else needs or benefits in any way from having objective reasons to do anything. We can do things because we want to. We don’t need any more “reason” (if desires could be construed as reasons) than that.
So one way of thinking about this is as follows.
Imagine you’re goal is to eat every apple you see. I show you an apple. You acknowledge that it is in fact an apple, and you have seen the apple. I say you should then eat the apple. You refuse to eat the apple.
My view is that you (epistemically) ought to have eaten the apple. There is a normativity about reasons (and logic) that suggest I am justified in saying this. If you reject normativity about epistemic reasons, it seems to me that you don’t have to accept that you ought to have eaten the apple.
Maybe there is something different about epistemic normativity than ethical normativity, or maybe there is something unique about epistemic normativity in the logical domain, but I’m not really sure what that special thing is.
I fail to follow the apple example. Why should I epistemically have eaten the apple? Either I have a true goal (and desire) to eat it or not. If I do, I will not refuse to eat it. If you assume it is a goal, I am assuming it is true, although people don’t generally have those sorts of goals, I think. They look more like… lists of preferences and degree of each preferences. Some are core-preferences difficult to change, while others are very mutable.
If by epistemic normativity you mean something like there are x, y, z reasons we should trust when we want to have proper beliefs about things, what I’d say is that this doesn’t seem normative to me. I personally value truth very highly as an end in itself, but even if I didn’t, truthful information is useful for acting to satisfy your desires, but I don’t see why one has some obligation to do so.I f someone doesn’t follow the effective means to their ends, they’re being ineffective or foolish, but not violating any norm. If you want a bridge to stand, build it this way; otherwise, it falls. But there’s no moral or rational requirement to build it that way—you just won’t get what you want.
I don’t accept that I “ought to have eaten the apple.” At the very least, I wouldn’t accept this without knowing what you take that to mean. I don’t think there are any irreducibly normative facts at all, nor do I think there are any such thing as “reasons” independent of descriptive facts about the relation between means and ends. So I don’t know what you have in mind when you say that “you ought to have eaten the apple.” I also don’t know why you epistemically ought to have; why not prudential, or some other normative domain?
Could you perhaps explain what you have in mind by epistemic and moral normativity? There’s a good chance I don’t accept the account you have in mind.
I am not sure there even are intuitions or seemings of the sort philosophers often talk about, but if I were to weigh in on the matter, I’d have the exact opposite reaction. I can think of few things more obvious than that it doesn’t make any sense to think some goals are more rational or correct than others. Goals are just descriptive facts about agents. They don’t even seem like an appropriate target of evaluation for such judgments. To me, this sounds like saying that someone’s birthday is more rationally warranted.
I also don’t see why denying the objective reality of goodness would undermine inquiry. Why would it? I act in pursuit of my goals. Inquiry is a means of pursuing my goals. I don’t even think it makes sense to talk of things being objectively good, but even if there were objective goods, I would not care about them.
Regarding the last remark: that there’s no “deeply compelling reason to do so,” you go on to say “For one thing: in order for there to be a suitably objective normative reason, normative realism would have to be true!”
But “deeply compelling” is not, to my mind, identical to “objective.” I don’t believe I or anyone else needs or benefits in any way from having objective reasons to do anything. We can do things because we want to. We don’t need any more “reason” (if desires could be construed as reasons) than that.
So one way of thinking about this is as follows. Imagine you’re goal is to eat every apple you see. I show you an apple. You acknowledge that it is in fact an apple, and you have seen the apple. I say you should then eat the apple. You refuse to eat the apple. My view is that you (epistemically) ought to have eaten the apple. There is a normativity about reasons (and logic) that suggest I am justified in saying this. If you reject normativity about epistemic reasons, it seems to me that you don’t have to accept that you ought to have eaten the apple. Maybe there is something different about epistemic normativity than ethical normativity, or maybe there is something unique about epistemic normativity in the logical domain, but I’m not really sure what that special thing is.
I fail to follow the apple example. Why should I epistemically have eaten the apple? Either I have a true goal (and desire) to eat it or not. If I do, I will not refuse to eat it. If you assume it is a goal, I am assuming it is true, although people don’t generally have those sorts of goals, I think. They look more like… lists of preferences and degree of each preferences. Some are core-preferences difficult to change, while others are very mutable.
If by epistemic normativity you mean something like there are x, y, z reasons we should trust when we want to have proper beliefs about things, what I’d say is that this doesn’t seem normative to me. I personally value truth very highly as an end in itself, but even if I didn’t, truthful information is useful for acting to satisfy your desires, but I don’t see why one has some obligation to do so.I f someone doesn’t follow the effective means to their ends, they’re being ineffective or foolish, but not violating any norm. If you want a bridge to stand, build it this way; otherwise, it falls. But there’s no moral or rational requirement to build it that way—you just won’t get what you want.
I don’t accept that I “ought to have eaten the apple.” At the very least, I wouldn’t accept this without knowing what you take that to mean. I don’t think there are any irreducibly normative facts at all, nor do I think there are any such thing as “reasons” independent of descriptive facts about the relation between means and ends. So I don’t know what you have in mind when you say that “you ought to have eaten the apple.” I also don’t know why you epistemically ought to have; why not prudential, or some other normative domain?
Could you perhaps explain what you have in mind by epistemic and moral normativity? There’s a good chance I don’t accept the account you have in mind.