Reflective Equilibrium: An Essay in Moral Epistemology (Stockholm Studies in Philosophy)

Doctoral dissertation Department of Philosophy Stockholm University 8-10691 Stockholm

ABSTRACT

In recent literature concerning the possibility of moral knowledge, it has been popular to apply coherentist accounts of epistemic justification to moral beliefs. This strategy is commonly associated with the notion of "reflective equilibrium" since the introduction of this term by John Rawls. The attempt to apply coherentism to moral beliefs is discussed in this essay under the label "the idea of reflective equilibrium". An account of the idea of reflective equilibrium is developed and defended. Several issues are addressed: what the role of the notion of reflective equilibrium is; what the relationship is between the state and the procedure of reflective equilibrium; the concept of coherence involved; the significance of the distinction between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium; the capability of the idea to account for common ways of moral reasoning; the methodological status of an account of epistemic justification. A popular objection to the idea of reflective equilibrium is that coherence among one's moral beliefs does not indicate that they are true since radically different sets of beliefs may be equally coherent. On the basis of a discussion of what "indicate that they are true" might mean in this context, it is argued that the relevance of this objection is doubtful. Moreover, it is argued that, at a certain level of coherence, and given a set of plausible assumptions about meaning, belief and coherence, the claim that radically different sets of beliefs may be equally coherent is implausible. Finally, some arguments are developed in support of the sceptical thesis that moral beliefs are significantly less justified than many nonmoral beliefs given the account of the idea of reflective equilibrium developed in this essay. Key words: coherence; Donald Davidson; epistemic justification; isolation argument; moral epistemology; moral knowledge; John Rawls; reflective equilibrium.

© 1993 Folke Tersman

ISBN 91-22-01551-5 ISSN 0491-0877 Printed by Lagerblads tryckeri AB, Karlshamn 1993

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

In his justly famous book A Theory of Justice, 1 John Rawls sets forth a substantive moral view. It consists mainly of two ethical principles stating when a society is morally just. However, a large part of the book is devoted to a general discussion of how such a view can be justified. Rawls outlines a method for testing and justifying moral principles. It involves essentially the notion of "reflective equilibrium". I will refer to it as "the idea of reflective equilibrium" or "the theory of reflective equilibrium". The idea of reflective equilibrium is often associated with a particular kind of process. We are led to imagine a person who attempts to organize her various moral beliefs into one coherent scheme. In this process, alternative moral theories are introduced, possible conflicts resolved, etc, until a maximum of coherence is achieved - a process in which none of the involved beliefs and theories is in principle immune to revision. The end-point of this process is referred to by Rawls as "the state of reflective equilibrium". Having reached that state, the moral beliefs of the person are rationally justified. The idea of reflective equilibrium answers the question suggested in the Preface - whether moral views can be rationally justified - in the affirmative. Therefore, it is in a sense an optimistic doctrine. However, it is by no means unanimously accepted among philosophers. Moral scepticism - the view that moral views cannot constitute knowledge or be rationally justified, at least not in the same way as scientific views can - is still a popular position among philosophers and laymen alike.

1 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971.

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Anyway, the idea has provoked a large amount of discussion, and is responsible for much of the fame of Rawls's book. Today, both its critics and its adherents are many, and no complete discussion of the justification of moral beliefs should disregard it. 1.1

THE PROBLEM, PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THIS ESSAY

1.1.1 The purpose of this essay The main purpose of this essay is to explore the plausibility of the idea of reflective equilibrium. I will state it as fully and clearly as I am able to, and consider its reasonableness in view especially of one type of objection raised against the idea. Even if Rawls's own formulation of the idea will be important as a point of departure, I will not feel obliged to characterize it so as to get his approval. The idea of reflective equilibrium is influenced by certain modem views in epistemology and philosophy of science, most notably by some famous comments of Nelson Goodman's about the justification of rules of inductive and deductive inference,l and through the development of coherence accounts of epistemic justification generally. The idea is clearly coherentist in spirit, in that it holds, unlike so-called "foundationalist" views, that none of the beliefs involved in the process of reaching reflective equilibrium, are, or need to be, independently justified - Le. justified independently of their relations to other beliefs. I think a discussion of the idea of reflective equilibrium benefits from viewing it in the perspective of this larger philosophical programme. An aim of the essay is to explore the relationship between the idea and the various philosophical views involved in this programme. 1.1.2 Limitations and preliminaries I will conceive the idea of reflective equilibrium as a theory stating under what conditions moral beliefs are epistemically justified - i.e. rationally supported or warranted in the sense held to be a prerequisite for knowledge. Other claims have been made on behalf of the idea. Some have argued that it provides a method for reaching agreement, an 1 Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th edition), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983, pp. 62-66.

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alternative account of coherence, a method for identifying the referents of certain moral terms, etc (see section 1.3.5). Some of these claims will be commented on in passing, but my main intention is to discuss it as a theory of epistemic justification in ethics. I will take a certain notion of "belief' as by and large unproblematic. A belief is conceived as a mental state of a person. However, I will not explicitly discuss the nature of such states. It is assumed that every belief held by a person has a specific content. This content is represented and identified by some proposition. We say that a person believes (that) p, or holds the belief (that) p, and the content of her belief determines what proposition we should substitute for p. The contents of a person's beliefs are important in this context since they determine which logical and other relations hold between the beliefs. This in turn is relevant to their coherence. Even if the suggested usage of the term "belief' is quite common, there are other usages. In many contexts, the term "belief' seems to refer simply to some proposition, for instance in phrases like "those beliefs are false", where no reference is made to any believer. Moreover, we say that two persons, A and B, may hold the "same" belief in the sense that they both may believe in the truth of the same proposition. In the usage of the term suggested in the previous paragraph, this state of affairs is described thus: one of the beliefs of A has the same content as one of the beliefs of B. Sometimes, the term "belief' will be used merely as referring to some proposition, but mostly it will be used in the first sense. What usage is employed in a particular case will hopefully be clear from the context. There is a specific view of the nature of belief underlying some of the reasonings in this essay. This view amounts roughly to the claim that a person holds the beliefs it is reasonable to attribute to her on the basis of publicly accessible information of her behaviour, mainly her speech behaviour. Ultimately, the concept of belief derives its content and applicability from its role in the explanation of such evidence. Thisview is stated somewhat more elaborately in section 5.3, where it is essential to the argument. However, most other arguments of this essay are not essentially based upon it. I presuppose that there are moral beliefs - i.e. that people hold beliefs with contents identified by moral propositions. This claim is perhaps more commonly expressed thus: moral beliefs have cognitive

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contents, they are true or false. To some extent, I think the outcome of nlY examination of the idea of reflective equilibrium, based on this assumption, will be relevant to its plausibility. Traditionally, moral philosophers have turned to semantical and ontological issues before trying to decide epistemological issues. Problems concerning the concept of "meaning" have, in my opinion, prompted a reversal of this procedure. However, I will not explicitly argue that the results of the discussion of the idea of reflective equilibrium are relevant to the plausibility of the claim that moral beliefs are true or false. 1 Nor will I explicitly say anything about the nature of the assumed truth and falsity of moral beliefs, or about the nature of truth and falsity in general. For instance, I wish to avoid taking a stand in the idealism/realism debate. However, I will have things to say that are relevant to the reasonableness of coherentism in general. Finally, I will assume that moral beliefs are unproblematically identified - Le. that we nlay distinguish moral beliefs from nonmoral beliefs. 1.1.3 The plan of this essay There are two remaining sections of this introductory chapter. The first (1.2) is devoted to a discussion of the concept of epistemic justification. The second (1.3) is a sketch of the history of the idea of reflective equilibrium; from a paper by Rawls published in the early fifties to the discussion of today. Apart from the introductory chapter, the essay contains five chapters. In chapters 2, 3 and 4, I shall characterize the idea of reflective equilibrium. I am thereby led to explore issues such as: the role of the notion of "reflective equilibrium"; the relationship between the state and process of reflective equilibrium; the role of nonmoral beliefs in moral reasoning; etc. In chapter 5, different versions of what I take to be the most important as well as popular objection to the idea of reflective equilibrium 1 For a defence of the inference fronl the possibility of justification in ethics to the claim that moral sentences have truth values, on the basis of a discussion of the idea of reflective equilibrium, see Prawitz, D., "Om nloraliska och logiska satsers sanning" (in Swedish), in Bergstrom, L., Ofstad, H. & Prawitz, D. (eds.), En filosofibok tilliignad Anders Wedberg, Stockholm: Bonniers, 1978, pp. 144-155. For a critique of Prawitz, see Bergstrom, L., "Vardenihilism och argumentation i vardefrAgor" (in Swedish), Filosofisk tidskrift 1 (1980), pp. 35-56.

INTRODUCTION

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are discussed. This is the objection that the process of achieving reflective equilibrium need not "lead towards truth", since it is not required that any of the beliefs we start out with are "independently" justified. The objection is subsequently dismissed. In chapter 6, I consider the implications of the theory of reflective equilibrium for the issue of whether moral beliefs in fact are justified. Some considerations are mentioned in support of the sceptical thesis that moral beliefs are likely to be significantly less justified than many nonmoral beliefs. Finally, there is an appendix, describing in detail Rawls's contract apparatus and its relationship to the idea of reflective equilibrium. 1.2

SOME NOTES ON EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION

The idea of reflective equilibrium provides an answer to the question: under what conditions is a person epistemically justified in holding a moral belief? It might be wondered how we can tell whether this answer is correct or plausible, or even what it is for such an answer to be correct. Furthermore, what difference does it make whether its answer is correct - what is the function and utility of the concept of "epistemic justification"? While working on this essay, I have often felt unable to provide convincing answers to questions like these. At other times, I usually answer as follows. Let us first consider the role of the concept of "epistemic justification". In accordance with philosophical convention, for someone to know something to be the case, it does not suffice that it is in fact the case and that she believes so. She must also have some reasons or evidence for thinking so. This condition is captured by requiring that her belief must be "justified" or "epistemically justified". So if we claim to have knowledge in ethics, we had better show that moral beliefs can be epistemically justified. On the other hand, "knowledge" is a word used in many ways. People are said to know their friends, the shortest ways to different places, how to play the tambourine, etc. Traditionally, epistemology is held to deal with "propositional" knowledge - i.e. knowing that some statement or proposition is true - as opposed to knowing something e.g. in the sense of having a competence. However, the difference between these forms of knowledge is possibly not sharp, and in the case

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of propositional knowledge it is doubtful whether a clear usage can be found. Issues such as whether epistemic justification is a necessary condition for knowledge, or if knowledge is justified true belief, strike me often as artificial - are they substantial or purely conventional (pretending for a moment that such a distinction can be made)? One strategy for resolving them could be to claim that it is a matter of decision how we should use words and phrases like "knowledge" and ."A knows that p". On the basis of such a decision, we could argue that someone could know something even if there is no justification, at least in moral contexts. And the issue of when and if moral beliefs are epistemically justified becomes irrelevant to the question of moral knowledge. If it is retorted that conlmon usage of these phrases does involve something like epistemic justification, we might ask: why worry if there is moral knowledge in that sense? The simplest answer is that we do worry. Our moral opinions affect our behaviour, and we are engaged in reasoning about them. We set forth arguments for and against moral claims, recognizing some lines of argument as valid and others as fallacious, sometimes being suspicious towards our ability to tell which is which. This practice would be reevaluated, and affected, perhaps with good reason, if we were convinced that moral knowledge is impossible and that moral claims cannot be rationally supported in the same way as beliefs in other areas (e.g. the natural sciences). Speaking for myself, I would take our moral practice less seriously if this were the case, while I would take it more seriously if I was convinced of the possibility of epistemic justification and knowledge in ethics. Let us tum to the issue of how a theory of epistemic justification is shown to be plausible. The concept of epistemic justification is often held to stand in an intimate relation to truth - this is what distinguishes epistemic justification from other forms of justification of beliefs (e.g. being justified in believing something for prudential reasons), and this is why epistemic justification is relevant to knowledge. According to a traditional analysis, beliefs are epistemically justified to the extent that it is rational or reasonable to hold them in view of the aim of holding true and avoiding false beliefs. 1 1 See e.g Brandt, R., "The Concept of Rational Belief', The Monist 68 (1985), pp. 3-23; and Alston, W., "Concepts of Epistemic Justification", The Monist 68 (1985), pp. 57-89.

INTRODUCTION

15

Let us provisionally disregard the vagueness of this fonnulation. Given such a characterization of the concept of epistemic justification, a seemingly straightforward way of testing a theory of epistemic justification is to ask whether most of the beliefs it picks out as justified in fact are true. A problem with this strategy is that it is not transparent which beliefs are true and which are false; otherwise we would not need a criterion of epistemic justification. We could of course compare the beliefs picked out as justified by the theory with our own beliefs, but the outcome of such a test would not mean much unless we have reason to think our beliefs are epistemically justified. And this we cannot know unless we are already in possession of a justified account of epistemic justification. 1 I will suggest an alternative view of how a theory of epistemic justification could be supported. The suggestion amounts to taking our actual argumentative practice - Le. the methods and procedures we actually use in testing beliefs and theories - as primary, in the sense that theories of epistemic justification are "tested" against it. A theory of epistemic justification is plausible insofar as it accounts for, or rationalizes our practice - Le. insofar as the methods we actually employ in testing beliefs provide, or can reasonably be seen as providing, an adequate and efficient way of fonning beliefs that are justified according to the theory. For instance, on this view, the coherence theory must, in order to be plausible, account for the fact that we do assign great weight to observations in scientific inquiry. Of course, not all aspects of our belief.: testing practices must be accounted for in this way by a theory of epistemic justification. Room must be left for reform and criticism of practice, otherwise there would be little point in formulating such a theory. As adherents of this "naturalistic" approach to epistenlology sometimes say, a theory of epistemic justification may be viewed as an idealized description or rational reconstruction of practice. 2 1 For further discussion of the problems of this strategy, see section 5.2.1. 2 The classical expression of this view is provided by W.V. Quine ("Epistemology Naturalized", in Ontological Relativity, New York: Columbia University Press, 1969, pp. 69-90). See also Harman, G., Thought, New Haven: Princeton University Press, 1973, p. 19; and Firth, R., "Coherence, Certainty, and Epistemic Priority", Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964), p. 556. Nelson Goodman's views on the justification of rules of deductive and inductive inference may also, of course, be viewed as an expression of such a view.

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I suggest that the idea of reflective equilibrium is plausible if the following two claims can be defended: (1) The idea accounts for common ways of moral reasoning in the way suggested above. (2) It cannot be shown to conflict with the aim of epistemic justification i.e. holding true and avoiding false beliefs. The first claim is defended mainly in section 2.4 (but see also sections 3.1 and 3.2.3), where I specify what features of the belieftesting practices I take to be relevant in this context. In chapter 5, a defence of the second claim is developed, accompanied by a discussion of what it means for a theory of epistemic justification to "conflict with" the cognitive aim. Provisionally, we may say that the idea of reflective equilibrium "conflicts with" the aim if the beliefs picked out as justified by the idea are not to a significant degree likely to be true. What is meant by saying that the idea of reflective equilibrium is "plausible" if the claims can be defended? In my opinion, we have thereby reason to think that it is true. Those sceptical towards the possibility of establishing an account of epistemic justification as true are welcome to view the claims (1) and (2) as implications of conditions of adequacy for a stipulative definition of the concept of "epistemic justification". A complete defence of the idea of reflective equilibrium would, of course, include criticism of alternative and competing accounts of epistemic justification in ethics. However, providing such criticism is beyond the scope of this essay (although some such criticism is implicit in the development and defence of the idea offered here).l 1.3

THE HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM

In the work of many moral philosophers, from Plato onwards, we find evidence for the employment of a method of moral reasoning in the spirit of the idea of reflective equilibrium. Rawls argues that this applies to Aristotle and Sidgwick. 2 This is partly due to the vagueness of the idea of reflective equilibrium, but also to the fact that it corresponds rather well to how we actually reason in ethics. Many of

1 For a survey of some alternative accounts of epistemic justification in ethics, see Tannsjo, T., Moral Realism, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield, 1990, chapter 2.

2 A Theory ofJustice, p. 51 (note 26).

INTRODUCTION

17

its features are present in our actual practice of testing and considering moral claims - when considering the plausibility of principles, we do compare them with less general judgments, and in case of conflict we sometimes reject judgments rather than principles, etc. However, in my sketch of the history of the idea of reflective equilibriun1, I will not attempt to trace its roots in the history of moral philosophy before Rawls. Nor will I, in this historical perspective, explore the undeniable influence, on the development of the idea, of certain modem views on justification and knowledge, such as Goodman's views on the justification of rules of inductive and deductive inference, W.V. Quine's views on confirmation and meaning, and the development of coherence theories in epistemology. The relationship between the idea of reflective equilibrium and relevant views in epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of language, will to some extent be explored along the way of stating and discussing the idea. Here, I wish merely to relate the contents of some of the most important texts in the development and discussion of the idea of reflective equilibrium. I will suggest different conceptions of the idea, what objections have been raised, what the state and focus of the present discussion is, etc. 1.3.1 Rawls's "Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics" As the first important document in the history of the idea of reflective equilibrium, I regard Rawls's early paper "Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics". 1 In this paper, Rawls develops ideas anticipating the views later to be expressed in A Theory of Justice. The central problem in "Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics" is how moral principles are "evidenced to be reasonable" or "shown to be justifiable".2 In an attempt to sketch a solution to this problem, Rawls delimits a class C of moral judgments. Members of C are the "considered moral judgments" of "con1petent moral judges". Characteristic of these judgments is that they are (or would be) made by impartial, well-informed and "reasonable" persons about particular and actual situations Uudgments about imagined cases are excluded). 1 Philosophical Review 60 (1951), pp. 177-197. 2 "Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics", pp. 189 and 183 respectively.

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Furthennore, the judgments are not the result of having consciously applied moral principles. 1 The method sketched by Rawls in "Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics" implies essentially that a principle is shown to be reasonable insofar as it "explicates" the judgments in C (at least those "within the range" of the principle). The notion of "explication" is only insufficiently explicated by Rawls, but here is a suggestion: a principle explicates a judgment j about a particular case if the principle, when applied to this case, yields a judgment equivalent to j. Principles are thus, in a sense, tested against the members of C, and are shown to be unreasonable if they conflict with them - Le. if they yield judgments inconsistent with members of C. This suggests that the judgments of C have some sort of epistemological priority, and that Rawls here advocates a forn1 of moral foundationalism. However, the possibility of rejecting members of C in case of conflict with a principle is recognized. 2 It is unclear how much of a concession to a coherentist view this is, since Rawls in such a case requires that an independent explanation of the falsity of the judgments must be forthcoming. It is also unclear what Rawls thinks is achieved by establishing that some principle is "reasonable" in the way sketched above. Are we thereby epistemically justified in accepting it? Some evidence can be found in support of such an interpretation. Rawls speaks at times of "moral knowledge", and the conditions of the members of Care explicitly picked because they are held to be favourable in relation to "the purpose of coming to know".3 Moreover, he states that he is not concerned "with the problem of how to make it [the method] psychologically effective in the settling of disputes".4 1.3.2 A Theory of Justice and later writings by Rawls A Theory of Justice was published twenty years after "Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics". To some extent, the idea of reflective 1 See ibid, pp. 180-182 for a discussion of these conditions.

2 Ibid, p. 188. 3 Ibid, pp. 177 and 181 respectivel y. 4 Ibid, p. 177.

INTRODUCTION

19

equilibrium stated there is an elaborat.ion of his views in the early paper. However, there are important differences, and the influence of philosophers with coherentist sympathies is apparent. While dropping the notion of "competent moral judges" in A Theory of Justice, Rawls holds on to the notion of "considered moral judgments". The considered moral judgments of a person are, roughly, those held with some confidence, not distorted by self-interest and prejudice, and based on well-grounded information and sound inference patterns. Unlike in his early paper, Rawls does not exclude general and theoretical judgments, or judgments about imagined cases. In considering the reasonableness of moral principles and theories, we may check them against our considered moral judgments - i.e. by seeing if they yield conclusions equivalent to our considered judgments about e.g. particular cases when applied to these cases. However, the coherentist character of the idea of reflective equilibrium is explicitly stressed in A Theory of Justice. If a set of principles would conflict with some of our considered moral judgments, this does not automatically mean that the principles should be rejected. If the principles seem more plausible than competing ones - perhaps they are intuitively reasonable, and favoured by certain philosophical and theoretical considerations - then it might be reasonable to reject the conflicting judgments, and hold on to the principles. Rawls imagines that the process of comparing principles with our considered judgments will lead us to go "back and forth", sometimes modifying the principles and sometimes our considered moral judgments, until coherence is achieved. He introduces the term "reflective equilibrium" to designate this state. If we are in this state, both principles and judgments are to some extent justified for us. However, Rawls points out that the state of reflective equilibrium is not necessarily stable. Further considerations might reasonably induce further revisions. 1 Rawls does not explicitly apply this method in defending his principles of justice. Instead, for this purpose he develops a complicated contract apparatus. The justification of the principles of justice is held to consist in the fact that they would be preferred to competing moral principles by the participants of a hypothetical contract situation - the 1 See e.g. A Theory of Justice, pp. 20-21, 47-48 for Rawls's views concerning considered moral judgments and the method of reflective equilibrium.

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so-called "original position". However, the idea of reflective equilibrium is relevant to the contract apparatus in at least the following way. What principles would be preferred is determined by how the original position is characterized. If the preferred principles would conflict with our considered moral judgments, this might be a reason for characterizing the original position differently. 1 While Rawls in his early paper seems to have regarded the method as providing epistemic justification, it is doubtful whether this is his view also in A Theory of Justice. In his later writings, he explicitly rejects it. This is especially clear in his Dewey lectures. 2 There, he regards the issue of justification as a "practical" problem. 3 He denies the existence of moral facts, and the idea of a given moral order that moral principles can be true of. 4 Justifying a conception of justice is not a matter of showing that it approximates or corresponds to "the moral facts". Instead, it is to defend it as reasonable in view of the aim of achieving a "public and workable agreement on matters of social justice which suffices for effective and fair social cooperation".5 1.3.3 The early criticism When A Theory of Justice was published it evoked much criticism, also with respect to the idea of reflective equilibrium. Important representatives of this early criticism are Richard Brandt, R.M. Hare, David Lyons, and Peter Singer. Common to these critics is that they object to the reliance in Rawls's method on our initially held considered moral judgments. This reliance qualifies Rawls, in their eyes, for being a "subjectivist" and an "intuitionist".6 1 See e.g. ibid, p. 141. For a detailed account of the contract apparatus and its relationship to the idea of reflective equilibrium, see the appendix to this essay.

2 "Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory", Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980), pp. 515-572. 3 Ibid, p. 554.

4 Ibid, pp. 519 and 561 respectively. 5 Ibid, p. 560. 6 See Hare, R., "Rawls' Theory of Justice" in Daniels, N. (ed.), Reading Rawls, Oxford: Blackwell, 1975, pp. 82, 83; Lyons, D., "Nature and Soundness of the Contract and Coherence and Arguments" in Daniels (ed.), Reading Rawls, p. 147; and Singer, P., "Sidgwick and Reflective Equilibrium", The Monist 58 (1974), p. 494.

INTRODUCTION

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The reliance on initially held considered moral judgments as a standard for adjudicating between moral theories is apparent in that moral principles are said to be "checked" against such judgments. 1 The fact that a moral principle "matches" our considered judgments ("in ret1ective equilibrium") is held to be a desirable feature, and conflicts between the principle and considered moral judgments may justify rejection or modification of the principle. Therefore, which considered moral judgments we initially happen to hold can be expected to determine which principles are, or become, justified for us according to Rawls's method. The revisability of considered moral judgments, in case of conflict with plausible moral principles, is acknowledged (at least by Singer2 ), but this is not held to significantly alter the picture. Singer argues that drastic revisions among our initially held considered moral judgments are unlikely, since "we start from a position in which we are trying to produce a theory that will match our moral judgments".3 Nor is the role of the complicated contract apparatus in Rawls's theory held to significantly diminish the importance of considered moral judgments. Hare notes that Rawls admits that if the contract apparatus yields principles that would conflict with our considered moral judgments, this is a reason for characterizing the contract apparatus differently.4 He takes this to imply that the contract apparatus is really superfluous in Rawls's method. It adds no independent justificatory force - independent, that is, from "testing" moral principles against considered moral judgments. Lyons reaches a similar conclusion. 5 Why is the reliance on considered moral judgments held to be objectionable? Hare and Singer seems to think that, in view of the fact that different persons may hold different considered moral judgments, it commits Rawls to some form of subjectivism or relativism. Hare claims that Rawls thereby "is making the answer to the question' Am I right in what I say about moral questions?' depend on the answer to the 1 See e.g. A Theory of Justice, p. 51. 2 "Sidgwick and Reflective Equilibrium", p. 516.

3 Ibid, p. 516. 4 "Rawls' Theory of Justice", p. 91. 5 "Nature and Soundness of the Contract and Coherence Arguments", p. 159.

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question 'Do you, the reader, and I agree in what we say?"'.1 He argues: The element of subjectivism enters [...] when a philosopher claims that he can 'check' his theory against his and other people's views, so that a disagreement between the theory and the views tells against the theory. To speak like this (as Rawls does constantly throughout the book) is to make the truth of the theory depend on agreement with people's opinions. 2

And Singer writes: It follows from his [Rawls's] views that the validity of a moral theory will vary according to whose considered moral judgments the theory is tested against. There is no sense in which we can speak of a theory being objectively valid, no matter what considered moral judgments people happen to hold. 3

However, this inference from the role of considered moral judgments is problematic, once the idea of reflective equilibrium is viewed as a theory of epistemic justification. The fact that different persons initially hold different considered moral judgments implies, perhaps, that different persons may become justified in accepting different moral principles according to the idea of reflective equilibrium. But this in tum does not commit us to relativism or subjectivism. Most commentators, whatever their view on the nature of truth, hold that different people may be justified in holding different beliefs, and furthermore that justified beliefs may be false. So it seems, at least superficially, that the claim that different people may be justified in holding different, even mutually incompatible, beliefs is compatible with an objectivist or realist view of truth. 4 Even if the role of considered moral judgments in the idea of reflective equilibrium does not commit Rawls to subjectivism, considered moral judgments may still be inappropriate as a standard for justification of moral principles. 1 "Rawls' Theory of Justice", p. 82. 2 Ibid, p. 83.

3 "Sidgwick and Reflective Equilibrium", p. 494. 4 I will return to this issue in chapter 5.

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Hare flatly denies that moral principles are genuinely tested by comparing them with considered moral judgments. This would be, he thinks, like "testing" scientific theories "by seeing what people say about them when they have thought about them".1 Fourmulating a set of moral principles that matches our considered moral judgments better than competing ones is a matter of merely anthropological interest. The principles provide a kind of systematic characterization or description of our moral sensibilitites. It does in no way justify the principles. 2 In fact, Hare accuses Rawls of having confused moral anthropology with moral philosophy,3 a suspicion he finds support for in Rawls's comments on the analogy between the idea of reflective equilibrium and linguistic method - i.e. a method by which a person's syntactic competence is characterized. 4 However, Hare offers no real argument for thinking that our considered moral judgments are inappropriate as a basis for adjudicating between competing moral theories. An argument to that effect is instead suggested by Singer. He claims that it might be best to forget all about our considered moral judgments, since they are likely to derive from discarded religious systems, from warped views of sex and bodily functions, or from customs necessary for the survival of the group in social and economic circumstances that now lie in the distant past [....]5

And Lyons wonders if considered judgments "express any more than arbitrary commitments or sentiments that we now happen to have".6 Similar comments are made by Richard Brandt. He claims that "it is puzzling why an intuition - a normative conviction - should be

1 "Rawls' Theory of Justice", p. 83. 2 I have characterized the theory of reflective equilibrium as an account of when a person is epistemically justified in holding a moral belief. Hare's and Singer's criticism is possibly based on viewing the theory as an attempt to specify what constitutes evidence for llloral principles. Although the second issue is relevant to the first, they are separate, and I will regard Hare's and Singer's objections as pertinent to the issue of justification rather than evidence. 3 "Rawls' Theory of Justice", p. 86. 4 See A Theory of Justice, pp. 46-48. 5 "Sidgwick and Reflective Equilibrium", p. 516. 6 "Nature and Soundness of the Contract and Coherence and Arguments", p. 146.

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supposed to be a test of anything", since our "normative beliefs are strongly affected by the particular cultural tradition which nurtured us, and would be different if we had been in a learning situation with different parents, teachers or peers".l And he quotes with approval Singer's similar comments. In fact, Brandt elaborates the objection, and states it more clearly than this. He characterizes the idea of reflective equilibrium in the following way. We begin with our moral judgments, held with different degrees of confidence (at different "initial credence levels"), filtering them so that we are left with those qualifying as "considered judgments". We then propose principles and attempt to bring the system of principles plus judgments into equilibrium, allowing revisions and modifications wherever necessary to produce coherence in such a way that "the total resulting system [...] 'saves' the total amount of initial credence [...] better than any other [coherent] system of normative beliefs".2 Brandt argues that in order for a procedure of the kind sketched above to result in justified beliefs, we must start with beliefs that are "initially credible - and not merely initially believed - for some reason other than their coherence". Otherwise it could be that the procedure "leads away from the truth rather than towards it", and thus amounts to nothing but "a reshuffling of moral prejudices". There is no reason to think that considered moral judgments are initially credible, or to think, in the case of moral beliefs, "that initial credence levels, for a person, correspond to credibilities".3 Therefore, having achieved reflective equilibrium is not sufficient for being justified in holding the resulting beliefs. Brandt has elsewhere raised a similar objection against coherence theories of justification generally. Again, the point is that mere coherence is not sufficient for epistemic justification, since "coherence need not lead towards truth unless the system includes reports of experience

1 A Theory of the Good and the Right, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979,

p. 21. 2 Ibid, p. 18. 3 Ibid, pp. 20-22 (for all quotations in this paragraph).

INTRODU CTION

25

that are themselves independently credible".l Brandt's objection will be considered at length, and subsequently dismissed, in chapter 5. Hare's, Singer's and Lyon's similar objections will not be treated separately. 1.3.4 Norman Daniels and wide reflective equilibrium In a series of influential writings published in 1979-80, Norman Daniels elaborates and defends the idea of reflective equilibrium as an account of theory acceptance in ethics. Daniels introduces a distinction between "narrow" and "wide" reflective equilibrium, which he claims to have found in Rawls's own writings. The distinction is, according to Daniels, inlplicit in A Theory of Justice and explicit in Rawls's APA adress "The Independence of Moral Theory".2 Narrow reflective equilibrium is achieved by settling for the set of principles that best fits our considered moral judgments, and by resolving possible conflicts by revising or modifying either judgments or principles or both. However, the idea of reflective equilibrium prescribes that we should seek wide reflective equilibrium. Wide reflective equilibrium involves, in addition to principles and considered moral judgments, a further category of beliefs - so-called "background theories". Seeking wide reflective equilibrium is an attempt to produce coherence in an ordered triple of sets of beliefs held by a particular person, namely, (a) a set of considered moral judgments, (b) a set of moral principles, and (c) a set of relevant background theories. 3

We begin by considering alternative and competing sets of moral principles, trying to bring out their relative strengths and weaknesses by advancing "philosophical arguments" which can be "construed as [in a loose sense] inferences from some set of relevant background theo1 "The Explanation of Moral Language", in Copp, D. & Zimmennan, D. (eds.), Morality, Reason and Truth, New Jersey: Rowman & Allanheld, 1985, p. 115.

2 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 48 (1974/75), pp. 5-22. For Daniels's attribution, see Daniels, N., "On Some Methods of Ethics and Linguistics", Philosophical Studies 37 (1980), note 1. In "The Independence of Moral Theory", Rawls does talk of "wide" and "narrow" reflective equilibrium (p. 9), but it is doubtful if what he has in mind is the same distinction as Daniels. 3 Daniels, N. "Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in Ethics", Journal of Philosophy 76 (1979), p. 258.

26

CHAPTER 1

ries".l The principles standing out as best after this scrutiny are tested against our considered moral judgments. In case of conflict, there is heavy pressure towards revising the judgments. However, we might want to hold on to the conflicting judgments. Again, we are to go "back and forth", sometimes adjusting the judgments, and sometimes the principles and background theories, until coherence is achieved - i.e. until we have reached wide reflective equilibrium. Daniels exploits the distinction between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium in trying to respond to some of the criticisms mentioned in the previous section. Given that the idea of reflective equilibrium requires wide reflective equilibrium, it is seen that Hare, Lyons, and Singer overstate its reliance on considered moral judgments. Seeking wide reflective equilibrium permits extensive revision of our initially held considered moral judgments, since they are always subjected to exhaustive review and are 'tested', as are the moral principles, against a relevant body of theory. At every point, we are forced to assess their acceptability relative to theories that incorporate them and relative to alternative theories incorporating different considered moral judgments. 2

Moreover, Daniels claims (pace Hare) that the contract apparatus is an essential part of Rawls's theory, and that it provides independent support for the principles. He regards Rawls's theory as an example of a particular wide reflective equilibrium, where the contract apparatus reflects the background theories, and brings out their relevance to the principles. The hypothetical contract is a "philosophical argument" of precisely the kind mentioned above (see the appendix for a more detailed discussion of Daniels's reading of Rawls). Finally, in view of the distinction between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium, Daniels considers Rawls's analogy between the method of reflective equilibrium in ethics and linguistic method. Daniels argues that if the method of reflective equilibrium is seen as requiring merely narrow reflective equilibrium, the analogy would be plausible. And so would, perhaps, the claim that the outcome of the method is of mere anthropological interest. However, once it is recog-

1 Ibid, p. 258. 2 Ibid, p. 267.

INTRODUCTION

27

nized that the method prescribes search for wide reflective equilibrium, the analogy is seen to be flawed. Again, the reason is that the method of wide reflective equilibrium permits extensive and theory-based revisions of our initially held considered moral judgments. Linguistic method merely permits revisions of initial judgments "if we can pass them off as performance based errors".1 In other words: the procedure of seeking wide reflective equilibrium is likely to change people's moral beliefs, not merely lead to a characterization of their initial moral sensibilites. Therefore, it may be relevant to the justification of moral beliefs, and not just to anthropology.2 Daniels is not entirely clear as to the nature of the background theories, or the nature of their support of moral principles. He argues that they must "show that the moral principles [...] are more acceptable than alternative principles on grounds to some degree independent of [their] match with relevant considered moral judgments [ ]" Therefore, we should "require that the background theories [ ] be more than reformulations of the sanle set of considered moral judgments involved when the principles are matched to moral judgments."3 Does this mean that the background theories must be nonmoral? Daniels rejects such a suggestion, since he thinks it would amount to a "reduction of the moral [...] to the nonmoral".4 Instead, he seems to regard thenl as in some sense moral - but highly theoretical and abstract - since he imagines that they could be "constrained" by considered moral judgments. In order for the background theories to provide independent support for the moral principles, Daniels introduces the so-called "independence constraint".5 The independence constraint requires that the considered moral judgments against which the p~nciples are tested are to some extent "disjoint" from those constraining the background 1 "On Some Methods of Ethics and Linguistics", p. 26. 2 However, Daniels recognizes that merely making the distinction between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium is not a response to Brandt's objection ("Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in Ethics", p. 268). 3 "Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in Ethics", p. 259, for both quotations.

4 Ibid, p. 259. 5 Ibid, p. 260.

28

CHAPTER 1

theories. The background theories may, for example, "not incorporate the same type of moral notions as are employed by the principles and those considered judgments relevant to 'testing' the principles". 1 The importance and substance of the distinction between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium has been questioned. 2 However, what is important here is merely to note that it has been of great rhetoric importance. After Daniels, participants in the debate about the idea of reflective equilibrium generally talk of the idea as prescribing wide and not merely narrow reflective equilibrium. It has thus been incorporated into the history of the idea of reflective equilibrium. 1.3.5 The idea of reflective equilibrium today Although the idea of reflective equilibrium has been extensively criticized, it is fair to say that it stands out today as the single nlost widely discussed, and in my opinion most plausible, candidate for a methodology in ethics. Sometimes, one gets the impression that it is the only candidate taken seriously in debates over moral epistemology. For instance, consider the fact that in three relatively recent anthologies touching on moral epistemology, there are several articles with their main focus on the idea of reflective equilibrium. 3 In this section, I will relate some of the nlain trends in the present discussion about the idea. Most of the discussion centers around the idea of reflective equilibrium conceived as an account of epistemic justification for moral beliefs. As such, it has in recent years been defended and to some extent elaborated by e.g. David Brink, Michael DePaul, and Torbjorn Tannsjo,4 and criticized by David Copp, D.W. Haslett, Daniel

1 Ibid, p. 260. 2 E.g. by Margaret Holmgren in "The Wide and Narrow of Reflective Equilibrium", Canadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (1989), pp. 43-60. 3 Copp & Zimmerman (eds.), Morality, Reason and Truth; Sayre-McCord, G. (ed.), Essays on Moral Realism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988; and Timmons, M. (ed.), Moral Epistemology, Southern Journal of Philosophy 29 (supp!.), 1990. 4 See Brink, D.O., Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1989; DePaul, M., "Reflective Equilibrium and Foundationalism", American Philosophical Quarterly 23 (1986), pp. 59-69; DePaul, M., "Two Conceptions of Coherence Methods in Ethics", Mind 96 (1987), pp. 463\481; and Tannsjo, Moral Realism, esp. pp. 39-43.

INTRODUCTION

29

Little, Mark Timmons (to mention a few).! The criticism is surprisingly homogenous. It consists mainly of different versions of Brandt's objection that maximizing coherence among one's considered moral judgments need not "lead towards truth". However, many other claims have been made on behalf of the idea of reflective equilibrium. It has recently been seen as providing an alternative account of coherence,2 and as a method for determining the referents of moral terms) More interesting, perhaps, are claims to the effect that it provides "practical" rather than epistemic justification. As we saw above, this seems to be Rawls's present stance. A similar view is taken by Ronald Dworkin and William Shaw. 4 What does this "practical" justification amount to more precisely? Rawls thinks that the goal of moral theory is to achieve "public and workable agreement on matters of social justice which suffices for effective and fair social cooperation".5 Employing the method of reflective equilibrium in trying to determine moral and political issues is possibly an efficient way of achieving this goal. Similarly, Dworkin argues that there are practical or moral reasons for accepting the results of the process of reflective equilibrium, since "men and women have a responsibility to fit the particular judgments on which they act into a coherent program of action".6 And Shaw views the method as a reasonable device in the process of reaching certain practical and/or moral goals - e.g. fostering a more "secure, orderly and commo1 See Copp, D. "Considered Moral Judgments and Moral Justification: Conservatism in Moral Theory" in Copp & Zimmerman (eds.), Morality, Reason and Truth, pp. 141-168; Haslett, D. W., "What Is Wrong with Reflective Equilibria?", Philosophical Quarterly 2 (1987), pp. 305-311; Little, D., "Reflective Equilibrium and Justification", Southern Journal of Philosophy 22 (1984), pp. 337-388; and Timmons, M., "On the Epistemic Status of Considered Moral Judgments", in Timmons (ed.), Moral Epistemology, pp. 97-130. 2 See Tolland, A., Epistemological Relativism and Relativistic Epistemology. Richard Rorty and the Possibility of a Philosophical Theory of Knowledge (PhD diss.), Gothenburg: Acta Philosophica Gothoburgensia, 1991, esp. pp. 79-85.

3 See Sullivan, S., Moral Realism and Naturalized Metaethics (PhD diss.), Ithaca: Cornell University, 1990. 4 See Dworkin, R., Taking Rights Seriously, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977; and Shaw, W., "Intuition and Moral Philosophy", American Philosophical Quarterly 17 (1980), pp. 127-134.

5 "Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory", p. 560. 6 Taking Rights Seriously, p. 160.

30

CHAPTER 1

dious" society. 1 The plausibility of these claims has been questioned, for instance by Margaret Holmgren. 2 Although there have been some elaborations of the idea of reflective equilibrium after Daniels,3 many questions are left unanswered. Consider for instance the nature of coherence. Brink sees the idea of reflective equilibrium simply as a special case of the coherence theory, and leaves crucial concepts such as "n1aximal coherence" unexplicated. Other questions left largely unanswered are: What is the relationship between the state of reflective equilibrium and the process leading to it? What is the role of nonmoral beliefs in moral reasoning according to the idea of reflective equilibrium? Is coherence sufficient for the justification of moral beliefs? Some such questions are addressed in the sequel.

1 "Intuition and Moral Philosophy", pp. 133-134. 2 In "Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Objective Moral Truth", Metaphilosophy 16

(1987), pp. 108-124. See also Cooper, W. I., "Taking Reflective Equilibrium Seriously", Dialogue 20 (1981), pp. 548-555, for a critique specifically of Dworkin. 3 See e.g. DePaul, "Two Conceptions of Coherence Methods in Ethics", where he distinguishes between a "conservative" and a "radical" conception of the idea.

CHAPTER 2

COHERENCE

The main purpose of this and the following two chapters is to characterize the theory of reflective equilibrium, and to discuss to what extent it meets the first constraint mentioned in section 1.2: that the theory should account for common ways of moral reasoning. These two aims are interconnected, since I obviously wish to characterize the theory, as far as possible, so that it does indeed n1eet the constraint. Rawls emphasizes that if a person has reached reflective equilibrium, then her moral beliefs are structured and organized in various ways they are "mutually supportive" and "fit together" into "one coherent scheme".1 In short: her moral beliefs must be coherent. It is not obvious whether this should be considered sufficient for being in a state of reflective equilibrium. Some commentators deny that coherence is sufficient, and I will in the subsequent chapters discuss some arguments to that effect. In this chapter, however, I shall focus on the coherence condition and its role in the theory of reflective equilibrium. The intuitive idea behind the concept of coherence is vividly described by Laurence Bonjour. According to him, coherence is a matter of how well a body of beliefs 'hangs together': how well its cOll1ponent beliefs fit together, agree, or dovetail with each other, so as to produce an organized tightly structured system of beliefs, rather than either a helter-skelter collection or a set of conflicting subsets. 2

1 "The Independence of Moral Theory", p. 8. 2 Bonjour, L., The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 93.

32

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However, if we require more preciseness than this, the concept of coherence has proven difficult to explicate. F.H. Bradley, Otto Neurath, Brand Blanshard, A.C. Ewing, Wilfrid Sellars and, more recently, Bonjour, Gilbert Harman, Keith Lehrer and Nicholas Rescher are well-known coherence theorists with widely differing views as to how the concept of coherence should be construed. 1 In the discussion of the idea of reflective equilibrium, few if any attempts have been made to produce an account of the concept of. coherence it invokes. This is possibly because commentators tend to regard the theory of reflective equilibrium simply as an application of coherentism to moral beliefs. Therefore, it is held to invoke the same notion of coherence as that held to be relevant to the justification of nonmoral beliefs. 2 Consequently, it has not been seen as the job for the commentators of the idea of reflective equilibrium to produce a separate account of the notion of coherence. The upshot of the discussions in this chapter will not be a fully developed definition of coherence. I will rather provide a somewhat vague characterization of a notion of coherence, and make some suggestions as to its relevance to the justification of moral beliefs according to the theory of reflective equilibrium. The plan of the chapter is as follows. In the next section, I survey some suggestions made by coherentists about the notion of coherence ano its relevance to justification. In section 2.2, a notion of coherence is characterized. On the basis of the discussion of this notion, some claims about the justification of moral beliefs are set forth - yielding, in effect, a sketchy version of the theory of reflective equilibrium. The role of the notion of "reflective equilibrium" in the theory of reflective equilibrium is explored in section 2.3. In section 2.4, I discuss to what extent the theory accounts for our practice of defending moral claims, partly in view of the relationship between the state and procedure of 1 See Blanshard, B., The Nature of Thought (vol 2), London: Allen & Unwin, 1939; Bonjour, The Structue of Empirical Knowledge, Bradley, F.H., Essays on Truth and Reality, New York: Oxford University Press, 1914; Ewing, A.C., Idealism: A Critical Survey, London: Methuen, 1934; Harman, Thought; Lehrer, K., Knowledge, Oxford: Clarendon, 1974; Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge, London: Routledge, 1990; Neurath, 0., "Protocol Sentences" in Ayer, A. (ed.), Logical Positivism, New York: Free Press, 1959, pp. 199-208; Rescher, N., The Coherence Theory, London: Clarendon, 1973; and Sellars, W., Science, Perception and Reality, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963. 2 Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, pp. 103, 136.

COHERENCE

33

reflective equilibrium. In section 2.5, finally, some concluding remarks are made. 2.1

SUGGESTIONS ON COHERENCE

Most coherence theorists hold that a belief is justified to the extent that it is a member of a coherent set and/or contributes in some way to its coherence. 1 As an effect, much effort has been devoted to clarifying what it means for a set to be coherent. Coherentists tend to agree in holding logical consistency to be a necessary feature of a coherent set, but they also agree in thinking that consistency is not sufficient; a common strategy in responding to critics has been to point this out. There are many different views as to what other features are necessary. Classical idealists, such as Brand Blanshard, explicate coherence in terms of logical entailment. A view sometimes attributed to Blanshard is that a set is coherent if and only if each of its members entails, and is entailed by, the rest of the set. 2 This very strong and somewhat unrealistic requirement is weakened by A.C. Ewing, who argues that it is sufficient if each member is entailed by the rest (and that no subset smaller than the whole set is logically independent of the rest).3 More recently, following some suggestions by Gilbert Harman and Wilfrid Sellars, it has been popular to explicate coherence in terms of explanatory relations. 4 A set is held to be coherent to the extent that its members are mutually explanatory; i.e. related so that each member is either explained by other members of the set or explains other members of the set or both. Laurence BonJour has objected to making explanatory relations exclusively relevant to the coherence of a set, on the ground that any sort of evidential relation holding between the members of a set should 1 See e.g. Bonjour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, p. 92; and Dancy, 1., Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology, Oxford: Blackwell, 1985, p. 110. 2 For one such attribution, see Bonjour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, p. 96. However, it is unclear if Blanshard's notion of "entailment" is the same as the one referred to here. See Blanshard, The Nature of Thought, p. 264.

3 Ewing, Idealism, pp. 229-230. 4 See e.g. Harman, Thought; Lycan, W., Judgement and Justification, Carrlbridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988; Sellars, Science, Perception and Reality, esp. pp. 321-358; and Sellars, W., "Givenness and Explanatory Coherence", Journal ofPhilosophy 70 (1973), pp. 612-624.

CHAPTER 2

34

be relevant to its coherence, since any such relation might be relevant to the justification of beliefs.! Of course, Harman seems to think that evidential relations are always explanatory, but I agree with Bonjour in holding that the notion of coherence should not be explicated so as to presuppose such a view. The analysis provided by Bonjour himself does not amount to a precise definition of the notion of coherence. Instead, it consists of some vaguely formulated claims about what makes a set of beliefs coherent - about "symptoms" of coherence. BonJour thinks that essential features of a coherent set of beliefs are: logical consistency; a high degree of "probabilistic" consistency; a significant number of relatively strong inferential relations among the members of the set; a high degree of unification - Le. the set does not to any significant extent divide into subsets that are unconnected by inferential relations; and the presence of few anomalies - Le. beliefs difficult to explain on the basis of the rest of the members. 2 It seems conceivable that these features can be at hand to a greater or lesser extent. Accordingly, the coherence of a set of beliefs seems, on Bonjour's view, to be a matter of degree. However, Bonjour makes no suggestions concerning how to determine what degree of coherence obtains in a set. Possibly the most sophisticated account of the coherence theory in recent litterature is provided by Keith Lehrer. While Bonjour concentrates on a notion of coherence conceived as a property of sets of beliefs, Lehrer focuses on coherence conceived as a relation between a belief and a set of beliefs. On a somewhat sinlplified account of Lehrer's position, a belief p coheres with the set S of all and only beliefs held by a person A - her "system" - if and only if every belief that "competes" with p for A on the basis of S is either "beaten" or "neutralized" for A on the basis of S. A belief q is said to "compete" with p for A on the basis of S if and only if it is more reasonable for A to accept q given the truth of not-p than on the assumption that p is true, on the basis of S. Moreover, p "beats" q for A on the basis of S if and only if p competes with q for A on the basis of S and it is more reasonable for A to accept p on the 1 Bonjour, The structure of Empirical Knowledge, p. 100. 2/bid, pp. 95-101.

COHERENCE

35

basis of S than q. Finally, a competitor q of p for A on the basis of S is "neutralized" for A on the basis of S if and only if there is a proposition r such that the conjunction of rand q does not compete with p for A on the basis of S and it is as reasonable for A to accept the conjunction of rand q on the basis of S as it is to accept q alone. 1 Notice that Lehrer defines coherence in terms of what it is reasonable to accept on the basis of one's system. This concept is taken as primitive. For instance, the suggestion that the reasonableness of some belief on the basis of one's system S should be equated with its probability (conditional on the conjunction of the members of S) is explicitly rejected by Lehrer, at least given standard conceptions of (conditional) probability. 2 The theories of justification advanced by Bonjour and Lehrer involve other elements than their views of coherence paraphrased above, bringing out the relevance of coherence to the justification of belief. On Bonjour's theory, in order for a belief p to the justified for a person A, it is not sufficient that A's system S of beliefs is coherent and that p is a member of S. S must also meet "the observation requirement". This requirement is introduced in an attempt to respond to some traditional objections to coherentism (e.g. "the isolation argument", discussed in chapter 5 of this essay). It seems satisfied by S only if S contains a wide variety of observational (or "cognitively spontaneous") beliefs, and laws attributing a high degree of reliability to these. 3 Lehrer's theory involves a similar assumption, namely that a person, in order to be justified in holding her beliefs, must believe that she is "trustworthy" or reliable in certain situations. 4 Parenthetically, it seems that the observational requirement is trivially satisfied by the system of any believer, at least the part requiring that the system must contain observational beliefs. The reason is that having beliefs of any kind presupposes having many observational beliefs - i.e. beliefs correlated with easily detected events in the close environment of the believer. The beliefs of a person could not possibly 1 For the most recent account of Lehrer's view on coherence, see Theory of Knowledge, pp. 115-126. 2 Ibid, p. 127.

3 The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, pp. 141-143. See also p. 153. 4 Theory of Knowledge, p. 121.

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be identified unless we may correctly attribute many observational beliefs to her. Since the beliefs of a believer can in principle be identified, she must hold observational beliefs. The same reasoning could, but perhaps less plausibly, be applied in support of the claim that the attitude of regarding observational beliefs as generally reliable must be attributed to a believer (see section 5.3 for considerations in support of these claims). 2.2

COHERENCE AND THE THEORY OF REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM

Above, we saw that there are two notions of coherence - coherence conceived as a property of sets and coherence conceived as a relation between a belief and a set. Commentators of the idea of reflective equilibrium tend to focus on coherence as a property of sets. For instance, David Brink takes the idea to imply that a person is justified in holding a moral belief only if it is a member of ("part of') a coherent (preferably, a "maximally coherent") system of beliefs. 1 However, letting the notion of coherence as a property of sets be essential in.explaining when a belief is justified might have certain undesirable implications. For instance, claiming that a belief of a person is justified if and only if her beliefs form a coherent set implies that, unless all her beliefs are justified, no one is. Moreover, inconsistencies in the system of a person A that really are irrelevant to a belief p (p might concern psychology, while the inconsistencies might be due to A 's beliefs .about quantum mechanics) seem on this view, implausibly, to disqualify p from being justified for A. In trying to avoid the consequences mentioned above, I will focus on a notion of coherence conceived as a relation between a belief and a set of beliefs. With what set should a moral belief cohere in order to be justified for a person A? In defence of the suggestion that the system of A (i.e. the set containing all and only beliefs held by A) is the relevant set, Keith Lehrer writes: The·evaluation of all claims to truth, whether those of our senses, of reasoning, of memory, or of the testimony of others, must be based on our acceptance system,

1 Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, pp. 103 & 104.

COHERENCE

37

which contains our conception of the world and our access to it. There is no exit from the circle of what we accept. 1

Similar claims are made by many coherentists. For instance, Richard Rorty argues that "nothing counts as justification unless by reference to what we already accept, and there is no way to get outside our beliefs and our language so as to find some test other than coherence".2 And Donald Davidson says that "a coherence theory is simply the claim that nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief', and that "it is absurd to look for a justifying ground for the totality of beliefs, something outside this totality which we can use to test or compare with our beliefs".3 Following these suggestions, I will assume that the extent to which a person A is justified in holding a moral belief at a certain time t, according to the idea of reflective equilibrium, is determined by its coherence with the system of A at t. 4 When does a belief p cohere with the system S of A? On one suggestion, a belief p coheres with S to the extent that p is likely to be true on the assumption that the conjunction of the members of S (if p is a member of S, the relevant conjunction contains all members of S except p) is true. For instance, if a satisfactory notion of conditional probability could be developed, p's level of coherence with S could perhaps be equated with Prep given qt, ... , qn), where qt, ..., qn are the members of S (exceptp). Unfortunately, this proposal is inadequate. If S is inconsistent, it follows logically that p is false from the assumption that the members of S are true, and p's coherence with S (and, presumably, p's justifi1 The Theory of Knowledge, p. 113. Lehrer's notion of "acceptance system" differs somewhat from my notion of "system", but these differences will be disregarded in the present context. . 2 Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, New Haven: Princeton University Press, 1979, p. 178. 3 "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge", in LePore, E (ed.) Truth and Interpretation, Blackwell, Oxford, 1986, pp. 310 and 314 respectively. For similar comments, see Blanshard, The Nature of Thought, p. 272; and Firth, "Coherence, Certainty, and Epistemic Priority", p. 555. 4 On a plausible view of the concept of epistemic justification, what a person is justified in believing at some time t might differ from what she is justified in believing at some other time. However, for the sake of convenience, the reference to times will henceforth be omitted.

38

CHAPTER 2

cation for A) is minimal. But this conclusion is unreasonable for the reason mentioned above. Irrelevant inconsistencies in S should not necessarily disqualify p from being justified for A. Moreover, suppose that both p and another belief, q, are logically implied by the conjunction of the members of S (Le. q is implied by the conjunction of the members of S except q, while p is implied by the conjunction of the members of S except p). In this case, both p's and q's coherence with S seem maximal. However, this construal is insensitive to the possibility of either belief cohering better with S than the other belief, and this possibility should be acknowledged, at least insofar as the level of coherence of a belief with the system S of a person A is held to determine its justification for A. Let us try another approach. The quotations from Rorty and Davidson indicate that a person A is not justified in holding a belief p unless p is supported by some other belief held by A. This is n1erely a minimal and insufficient requirement, but I will consider it briefly. Consider the following definition: A belief p is positively relevant to a belief q relative to the system S of A if and only if p is an essential premise of a valid justificatory argument such that (i) q is the conclusion, (ii) the other essential premises are either members of S, or true and not believed to be false by A and nothing A believes indicates that they are false and their truth is "accessible" to A, and (iii) A does not believe any of the premises essentially because she believes the conclusion. This definition requires some comments. What does "valid justificatory argument" mean? Such an argument is not necessarily logically valid. However, some type of evidential relation must hold between the premises and the conclusion such that the conclusion is at least probably true given the truth of the premises. I will not specify which relations are properly evidential, but I will assume that the support provided by the premises is a matter of degree, depending on how probable the conclusion is given the truth of the premises. I also assume that the premises of a valid justificatory argument need neither be true nor likely, and that their truth or likelihood in no way affects the degree of support provided by the premises. Finally, I assume that the premises of a valid justificatory argument are consistent with each other.

COHERENCE

39

In order for a belief p to be positively relevant to a belief q relative to the system S of a person A,l it is not necessary that A actually believes all claims such that they, together with p, support q (see the second disjunct of condition (ii)). Underlying this claim is the view that a person might be justified in holding e.g. some observational belief (say, the belief that an object is red) in virtue of believing that she is generally reliable in such matters unless certain abnormal conditions are at hand (at least if she also believes that such conditions are not at hand). However, the belief that she is generally reliable does not by itself support the belief that the object is red, but only together with some claim to the effect that the object appears to be red for A, etc. Although such claims are true of a person, they are seldom, I think, believed by her. But even if the claim that the object appears to be red for A is not believed by A, the belief that she is generally reliable might still justify her in believing that the object is red. The plausibility of this view may perhaps be brought out by the following reasoning. The comments of Rorty and Davidson quoted above suggest that, if a person A is justified in holding a belief p, she is so in virtue of holding other beliefs supporting p. It must be possible to rationalize A's belief p with reference to other beliefs held by A, say, q and r. However, this should not be taken to imply that A must actually believe all claims such that they, together with q and r, support p. As for when the truth of a claim is "accessible" to a person, I assume that it is not sufficient that the claim is implied by other of her beliefs, and that these are true. Rather, the truth of a claim is accessible to a person in the sense relevant here only if she is very reliable in determining the truth of such claims - Le. if she near to never forms false beliefs about the truth of such claims. For instance, this holds for claims about the contents of one's own perceptions and beliefs. 2 The condition that none of the premises is accepted by A because she accepts the conclusion (Le. condition (iii)) is partly prompted by the following worry: if belief is allowed to be at all implicit, then, for at least some q, if p is held by A, (p or not-q) is also held by A. Granting 1 For the sake of convenience, the reference to the person's system in phrases like these will be omitted, unless there is some reason for making it explicit. 2 A consideration in support of the claim that believers are very reliable about the contents of their own beliefs is that, unless we could make this assumption, we would be unable to interpret their speech.

40

CHAPTER 2

this view, it follows that, for every belief p held by A, there is another belief q held by A such that q logically implies p together with a further belief held by A, namely (p or not-q). Thus, in order for the notion of "positively relevant" to be of any use, the fact that a consistent subset of the rest of A's beliefs logically implies p cannot be sufficient in order for its merrlbers to be positively relevant to p. In trying to account for the thought attributed to Rorty and Davidson above, the theory of reflective equilibrium could make the following claim: (REI) If a person A is justified in holding a moral belief m, there is another belief, n, held by A, such that n is positively relevant to m. Although this claim seems reasonable, the condition stated in (REl) is hardly sufficient in order for m to be justified for A. Consider the following reasoning: whether an argument justifies us in accepting its conclusion does not only depend on the relationship between the premises and the conclusion, but also on the reasonableness of the premises. In order for A to be justified in holding m, we should require that there is a further belief, n', held by A, such that n' is positively relevant to n, and so on. Let us define a notion of "argument": A subset S* of the system S of A is an argument for p if and only if (i) each member of S* is positively relevant to p, (ii) there is no belief x held by A such that, x is not a member of S*, and had A not believed x, there is a member y of S* such that y would not be positively relevant to q, and (iii) there is no proper subset S' of S* such that S' satisfies (i) and (ii).l Consider the following claim: (RE2) If A is justified in holding p, there is a subset S* of the rest of A's beliefs such that some subset of S* is an argument for p, and for every member x of S* there is some subset S' of S* such that S' is an argument for x. 1 The members of an argument will sometimes be called its "premises".

COHERENCE

I

41

However, even taken together, (REI) and (RE2) are hardly sufficient. A might hold beliefs that are negatively relevant to m (Le. positively relevant to not-m). And A might hold beliefs that are negatively relevant to the members of the subset(s) of S that satisfies the condition stated in (RE2). And so on. Such considerations may reasonably disqualify m from being justified for A. In fact, on the line of thought pursued in this section, many considerations seem relevant to the justification of m for A: the evidential complexity of the subset of S involved in the support of m - that is, the number of separate arguments for m contained by S; the number of arguments against m (Le. arguments for not-m) contained by S; the "strength" of the arguments for and against m contained by S (remember that evidential support is assumed to be a matter of degree); the number and strenght of the arguments for and against the members of S that are positively and negatively relevant to m; and so on. On the view that factors such as these determine the justification of a belief, justification is plausibly a matter of degree. 1 I will not try to specify when a belief is justified in an absolute sense, or suggest any particular level of justification as in some sense "sufficient". Such specifications would seem difficult to defend. Moreover, the utility of a notion of sufficient justification is dubious. It might perhaps be useful in some contexts - e.g. in courts of law or in determining moral responsibility in certain cases. 2 However, what level of justification is sufficient in this sense is bound to vary from context to context. 3 It is unsatisfactory to characterize the theory of reflective equi1ibrium as the claim that a moral belief m is justified for A to any extent only if (REI) and (RE2) are satisfied with respect to m, and to 1 That justification admits of degrees on a coherentist view of justification is commonly held. See e.g. Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, p. 103. 2 For instance, consider the case of a pharmaceutical company found to have distributed medicine with serious, but for the consumers unknown, sideeffects were the manufacturers justified in thinking that the product had no significant sideeffects? 3 This reasoning is reminiscent of Richard Rudner's argument to the effect that the inductive acceptability of some hypothesis is partly determined by ethical considerations (Rudner, R., "The Scientist qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments", Philosophy of Science 20 (1953), pp. 1-6). However, similar reasonings may be found in earlier writings. See e.g. Clifford, W.C., The Ethics of Belief, London: Thinker's Library, 1947.

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say that its level of justification is determined by the considerations surveyed above. However, I find it difficult to construe a notion of coherence in such a way that the relevance of these considerations is accounted for in a precise and reasonable way. At most, we may state a set of ceteris paribus claims of the form: if S contains more and stronger arguments for p than for q, then, other things being equal, p coheres better with S than q; if S contains more arguments for the members of S that are positively relevant to p than for the members of S that are positively relevant to q, then, other things being equal, p coheres better with S than q. But such claims are obviously not sufficient for determining p's level of coherence with S in a useful way. However, I will suggest some considerations I think are very important for the extent to which a belief p coheres with the system S of a person A, and thus for the extent to which a person is justified in holding a moral belief according to the idea of reflective equilibrium. Given (RE2), if a moral belief m is justified for A, m is supported by a chain of beliefs which is ultimately circular. This is a familiar (and for its critics, an objectionable) consequence of coherentist approaches to epistemology. Among coherentists, there is a tendency to think that "large justificatory circles are better than small ones".l In trying to account for this view, I will specify some conditions such that they are satisfied by a subset S* of the system S of A only if at least one premise of each argument for a moral belief m contained by S is a member of S*, and at least one member of each argument contained by S for these beliefs in tum is a member of S*, and so on: A subset S* of the system 5 of a person A is a C-set for a belief p if and only if there is no subset S' of 5 such that (i) 5' is an argument for p and no member of 5' is a member of S*, (ii) there is no subset S" of S such that S" is an argument for any of the members of s* and no member of S" is a n1ember of S*, and (iii) no proper subset of S* satisfies (i) and (ii). I suggest that if S contains a C-set for p such that it contains only a very limited number of the beliefs held by A, this indicates strongly that p does not cohere significantly with A 's system. On the other 1 See e.g. Harman, G., Change in View, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986, p. 33.

COHERENCE

43

hand, if each C-set for p contained by S contains a significant portion of the beliefs held by A, this indicates that p coheres well with S. Underlying these suggestions is the view that the beliefs of a person that best cohere with her system are highly entrenched and integrated in her system. Such beliefs are directly or indirectly evidentially connected with a substantial portion of the rest of her beliefs, and are supported by many different considerations (e.g. beliefs from different areas). The second claim is perhaps less compelling than the first, in view of the fact that an argument provides support for its conclusion only if its premises are at least to some extent warranted: a C-set for p might contain beliefs not being supported by other beliefs of the system S of A. Consider the following notions. An argument X for p contained by S is a C*-argument for p if and only if there is some subset S' of S such that X is a subset of S' and for every member q of S', S' contains an argument for q. A subset S* of the system S of A is a C*-set for p if and only if (i) for every C*-argument X for p contained by S, there is a member of X which is a member of S*, (ii) S contains no argument Y for any of the members of S* such that no premise of Y is a member of S*, and (iii) no proper subset of S* satisfies (i) and (ii). In trying to account for the view that an argument provides support for its conclusion only if its premises are warranted, I suggest that if there is some C*-set for p contained by S containing only a very limited portion of A's beliefs, this indicates that p does not cohere significantly with S~ On the other hand, if each C*-set for p contained by S contains a significant portion of A's beliefs, this indicates that p coheres well with S. Moreover, these claims are intended to account for the intuition that, in order for a belief p, held by A, to justify A in holding another belief, q, A must be justified in accepting p to some extent independently of holding q. The latter view has prompted foundationalists to stipulate the existence and necessity of foundational beliefs - i.e. beliefs justified independently of their relations to other beliefs. Although this is not an

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option for a coherentist, in a sense, she can still account for the intuition, in requiring that q must not be too directly involved in A's justification for holding p. On this view, the term "independently" cannot of course be understood in a strict sense, but rather as being a matter of degree, depending on the "directness" of the justification provided to the justifying belief by the justified belief. For instance, suppose that the only argument contained by the system S of a person A for a moral principle p involves the judgment j and a set of empirical claims such that p explains j in conjunction with these claims. Moreover, suppose that p in tum is a member of the only argument for j contained by S. This suggests that neither the principle nor the judgment are significantly justified for A (even if A may have strong independent reasons for accepting the relevant empirical claims). Given the suggestions under consideration, we may account for this view, since the subset of S containing p and j is a C-set (and a C*-set) for both p and for j. In a sense, the suggestions stated above makes the view that "large circles are better" true by definition, given that p's coherence with our system determines its justification. It might be asked if this strategy is reasonable: why are large circles better? One consideration in support of the suggestions in question is that, given these suggestions, the assumptions Al and A2 stated in section 5.3 are defensible. Al and A2 are essential in the defence of the claims Cl and C2 stated in the same, section. These claims in tum are essential in my attempt to defend the idea of reflective equilibrium (and coherentism in general) against one of its traditional objections - "the truth objection" (see chapter 5). Talk of "portions" of the system S of A, and of the "number" of separate arguments contained by S, etc, suggest that there is a useful way of counting and individuating the beliefs of a person, and this assumption is of course highly dubious. In section 1.1.2, a view of the concept of belief was suggested according to which a person holds the belief it is reasonable to attribute to her on the basis of publicly accessible information of her speech behaviour. However, this approach does possibly not justify the assumption that the beliefs of a person could be represented by a determinate set of propositions. This and many other considerations suggest that, to a significant extent, the issue of how well a belief coheres with one's system must be taken intuitively.

COHERENCE

2.3

45

THE NOTION OF "REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM"

So far, I have made no reference to the notion of "reflective equilibrium", and this might seem strange in view of the fact that the notion usually and understandably is held to have a central role in the theory of reflective equilibrium. Before suggesting a role for the notion, I will dwell for a moment on the following question: what is a reflective equilibrium? Some commentators talk as if a reflective equilibrium is a set of statements, or more precisely a set of statements meeting certain conditions (consistency and coherence, etc). For instance, Norman Daniels views Rawls's theory of justice as a particular example of a wide reflective equilibrium. 1 However, other adherents of the idea think that no matter what intrinsic properties a set of statements has, this is not sufficient for someone to be justified in accepting the statements. Consider a person A whose moral beliefs cohere well with her system, and suppose that A's moral beliefs include the belief m. David Brink claims that, unless the fact that m coheres with A's system at least partly explains why A holds m, A is not justified in holding m. 2 And Michael DePaul claims that a coherent set of moral statements is a reflective equilibrium for a person only if it maximizes "initial commitment" for that person. 3 Brink's and DePaul's views suggest that a reflective equilibrium is conceived as a state of a person rather than a set of statements (or a property of sets of statements). Anyway, this is how I will construe the notion. Notice that, on this view, two persons cannot be in the "same" reflective equilibrium, though, of course, they both can be justified in holding the same moral beliefs (beliefs with the same contents) because they both are in a state of reflective equilibrium. Although the notion of reflective equilibrium will be assigned a role in the theory, none of its essential claims is formulated in terms of the notion. Its role is merely indirectly relevant to the justification of moral beliefs. This is congenial with the tradition. Usually, the state of reflective equilibrium is viewed as a kind of ideal, stating at most 1 "Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in Ethics", p. 260.

2 Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, p. 103. 3 "Two Conceptions of Coherence Methods in Ethics", p. 466.

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sufficient conditions of justification. A person is not held to be in that state unless certain rather high demands are met - e.g. unless the set of her moral beliefs is "maximally coherent",l or unless she has been "confronted by all possible sets of moral principles and the philosophical arguments for them".2 It is often claimed that one at most can hope to approximate it to a greater or lesser extent, or approach it "asymptotically".3 What is the point of characterizing an ideal state in this way when formulating a theory of epistemic justification for moral beliefs? None of the claims of the theory of reflective equilibrium as developed in section 2.2 is precise. In attempting to characterize the state of reflective equilibrium - Le. an ideal state such that the moral beliefs of a person in that state are likely to be highly justified according to the theory of reflective equilibrium - we can perhaps illustrate and achieve a better grasp of what the claims of the theory amount to. A person is usually held to have reached the state of reflective equilibrium only if the set of her moral beliefs is to some high degree coherent. In this context, a notion of coherence as a property of sets is employed. Although such a notion can be derived from the notion of coherence suggested in the previous section (for instance, her system might be said to be coherent to the extent that its members cohere with it), it will not be employed in my characterization of the state of reflective equilibrium. The state of reflective equilibrium should be characterized so that the claim that the moral beliefs of a person A in the state of reflective equilibrium are significantly justified is defensible. Given the account sketched in the previous section, this aim suggests the following conditions. A person A is in the state of reflective equilibrium only if she holds no beliefs that are negatively relevant to any of her moral beliefs, and for every moral belief m held by A, (REI) and (RE2) are satisfied with respect to m. In view of the importance for the extent to which a belief p coheres with the system S of a person A of the occurrence of a C-set (and a C*1 Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundation of Ethics, p. 131. 2 Raz, 1., "The Claims of Reflective Equilibrium", Inquiry 25 (1982), p. 308. 3 See e.g Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundation of Ethics, p. "Reflective Equilibrium and Foundationalism", p. 60.

131; and DePaul,

COHERENCE

47

set) for p containing only a very limited portion of the beliefs held by A, the following additional condition seems close at hand: for every moral belief m held by A, each of the rest of the moral beliefs held by

A is a member of some C-set (and some C*-set) for m contained by the system S of A. This characterization fits with Rawls's own description. He claims that the state of reflective equilibrium is a matter of having found a systematic organization of all one's moral beliefs, "from those about particular situations and institutions up through broad standards and first principles to formal and abstract conditions on moral conceptions"1 - it is a matter of "mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitting together into one coherent view".2 However, notice that the conditions on the state of reflective equilibrium stated above do not guarantee that the moral beliefs of a person in the state of reflective equilibrium are highly justified according to the account developed in section 2.2. The fact that someone satisfies these conditions is possibly compatible with the fact that, for each of her moral beliefs, her system contains a C-set (or a C*-set) containing only a very limited portion of her system.

2.4

PRACTICE AND THE PROCEDURE OF REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM

One may provisionally distinguish between the state of reflective equilibrium and the procedure associated with it. 3 The procedure is often roughly described as follows: it begins with filtering one's moral views so that one is left only with those qualifying as considered judgments - Le. judgments based on adequate information, sound inference patterns, not influenced by prejudices, etc. The next step is to introduce and consider different moral theories and principles, and perhaps a set of philosophical background theories, and then compare them with the judgments. After having decided upon the principles that 1 "The Independence of Moral Theory", p. 8. 2 A Theory of Justice, p. 21 (my italics).

3 See e.g. Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, p. 131; Daniels, "Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in Ethics", p. 258; DePaul, "Reflective Equilibrium and Foundationalism", p. 59; and Raz, "The Claims of Reflective Equilibrium", p. 308.

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seem most promising, with respect to their coherence both with the judgments, and the background theories, one resolves possible conflicts, and otherwise increases the coherence until a maximum of coherence is reached - a process in which nothing is immune to revision. The goal of this process is the state of reflective equilibrium. I think the state of reflective equilibrium should be described so that the reasonableness of the procedure of reflective equilibrium might be explained on the basis of the state - Le. so that the procedure is seen to be an adequate and efficient way of reaching the state. Or, more generally, the theory of reflective equilibrium should be characterized so that the procedure is seen to be a way of achieving what, according to the theory of reflective equilibrium, are significantly justified moral beliefs. This ambition goes hand in hand with the ambition to construe the theory of reflective equilibrium so that it accounts for common ways of moral reasoning (see section 1.2), since the procedure of reflective equilibrium fits rather well with how we actually reason in morality. The purpose of this section is to discuss to what extent the account of the theory of reflective equilibrium sketched in this chapter meets this constraint. Phrases such as "common ways of moral reasoning", "our practices of belief-testing in morality", "our practice of defending moral claims", etc, need clarification. Of course, it is doubtful if there exists any determinate object such as "the" practice of evaluating and testing moral beliefs. How people reason in morality is likely to vary from culture to culture, from person to person. The features of practice that I take to be relevant are specified below, accompanied with attempts to show how they are accounted for by the theory of reflective equilibrium. I simply assume that these features are relevant, and no argument will be provided to the effect that these kinds of behaviour are instantiated by everyone or most who are thinking about morality or trying to defend moral claims. The features are divided into two main categories: those mentioned in descriptions of the procedure of reflective equilibrium; and those not usually mentioned in that context, but nevertheless seem to be important aspects of our practice. Some features of our justificatorypractice in ethics (e.g. to resolve apparent logical conflicts) can so obviously be accounted for that they are left unmentioned.

COHERENCE

49

2.4.1 Features of the procedure To filter one's moral beliefs, so as to disregard those based on prejudice, flawed inference patterns, etc.

The characterization of the notion of "considered moral judgments" reflects certain very general theories concerning the formation of beliefs and when a belief-forming mechanisn1 is reliable. The factors disqualifying a moral belief from being a "considered moral judgment" (e.g. prejudice, self-interest, insufficient evidence, unsound patterns of inference, and so on) are typically factors to which we refer in explaining why someone has come to hold incorrect beliefs. Why is self-interest or prejudice in some cases held to explain why people come to hold false beliefs? Possibly because a person who is inclined to believe something as an effect of self-interest or prejudice tends to disregard important evidence against that belief, which is thought to be unfavourable in the search of truth. To the extent that we accept such views, discovering that some belief is based on self-interest or prejudice provides a ground for being sceptical towards it. In other words, the belief that a belief p is based on self-interest might be negatively relevant to p, and this is relevant to p's coherence with our system - it affects the coherence of the belief with our system in a negative direction. By disregarding beliefs such as p we might increase the overall coherence of our moral beliefs with our system. Nothing is immune to revision.

This property underlies the view that the procedure of reflective equilibrium is a process of making stepwise revisions among one's beliefs ("going back and forth", etc) until coherence is achieved. It is accounted for by the "democratic" nature of the theory of reflective equilibrium. No belief is held to be independently justified - i.e. justified independently of its relations to the rest of our beliefs or judgments. On the contrary, such relations completely determine its justification for us. So, for any belief, if we discover that it conflicts with the rest of our beliefs, or that a belief that conflicts with it is better supported by the rest of our beliefs, this might be a reason for rejecting it.

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To introduce moral principles and theories.

In order for a moral belief of a person A to cohere with her system, it must be supported by other of her moral beliefs. And in order for A to be in the state of reflective equilibrium, all 'her moral beliefs must support, and obtain support from, other moral beliefs held by A. It seems inconceivable that these states of affairs could obtain unless A accepts some set of principles. Due to their generality a-nd lawlikeness, principles may entail and explain, and thus support, less general judgments. On the other hand, less general judgments may support principles as an effect of being explained by them. These relations are very important relations of evidential support, and it seems impossible for such relations to obtain among one's moral beliefs unless some have the generality and lawlikeness characteristic of principles. Explanatory relations are especially interesting. A belief might both support another belief and at the same time obtain support from it, in virtue of explaining or being explained by it. A person is in the state of reflective equilibrium only if her moral beliefs both support, and obtain support from, other of her moral beliefs. Since accepting principles is necessary in order for explanatory relations to obtain among one's moral beliefs, accepting principles is necessary in order to achieve the state of reflective equilibriun1. In other words: without principles one's moral beliefs cannot have the evidential structure necessary for being in the state of reflective equilibrium. By contrast, imagine a person whose moral beliefs are exhausted by a set of particular judgments about different concrete cases. None of her moral belief seems to cohere to any extent with her system. Moreover, to consider alternative moral principles is reasonable in this context, since some principles explain our judgments better than others. If a belief p explains a subset of our beliefs better than another belief q, this indicates that the subset provides more support for p than for q, and this affects their coherence with our system. 2.4.2 Other features of practice To study and elaborate thought experiments.

To construct and consider thought experiments is a way of becoming aware of the implications of moral principles, and thus of discovering

COHERENCE

51

conflicts between them and one's intuitive judgments on imagined cases. This is relevant to their coherence with one's system, and could lead to revisions resulting in a higher level of coherence. The same reasoning is pertinent to the application of moral principles to new and controversial cases, such as euthanasia.

To intoduce new concepts and to nzake moral views more precise. The introduction of new moral concepts and definitions of moral terms is motivated by the effects on the overall explanatory coherence of one's moral beliefs. Such concepts can be used in expressing simpler and more powerful moral theories, that better explain various other moral views. Moreover, some degree of preciseness is evidently necessary in order for our moral theories to actually stand in evidential relations, and thus to cohere with our system.

Deontic logic. Deontic logic is the discipline studying the logical relations holding between moral judgments. Refining our grasp on such matters is useful in exploring the coherence of one's moral beliefs, since coherence is partly a matter of logical relations. For instance, in revising our moral beliefs in order to increase their coherence with our system, we should be able to ascertain with some accuracy their level of coherence with our system. This in tum prompts us to explore their logical relations. 1

2.5

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The account of the idea of reflective equilibrium developed in this chapter is encapsulated in the claim that a person is justified in holding a moral belief to the extent that it coheres with her system. Although some considerations were mentioned relevant to the level of coherence of a moral belief with our system, and certain claims were made about how these considerations are relevant, the account does not amount to a set of claims precise enough to yield the level of justification of moral beliefs in concrete cases. Therefore, it should be viewed as an outline of a research programme rather than a developed theory. 1 For further discussion of the ability of the idea of reflective equilibrium to account for "practice", see sections 3.1 and 3.2.3.

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Parenthetically, the concept of epistemic justification seems itself to be rather vague. The attempts by coherentists to explicate the concept of coherence are either inadequate (such as Blanshard's or Ewing's) or vague (such as Bonjour's or Lehrer's) or both. Maybe there is an explanation of why this is so. The concept of epistemic justification derives its content from its role in activities such as: ascribing beliefs and desires to others, and thereby explaining their actions; detennining moral and juridical responsibility; argumentative practice; etc. The constraints it seems reasonable to impose on theories of epistemic justification, derived from this role (e.g. that they should "rationalize" practice), underdetermine them to a radical extent. A precise explication of the concept would possibly do violance to its utility, and at the same time yield counterintuitive implications. Even given the vagueness of the account of the theory of reflective equilibrium, it might be the object of rational discussion. Critics could hold that other considerations than those mentioned in section 2.2 are relevant to the justification of moral beliefs, for instance by arguing that the moral beliefs of a person could cohere well with her system and still not be justified to any extent. In chapter 5, I consider, and dismiss, one argument to that effect. Moreover, the account provides a ground for considering whether moral beliefs in fact are justified to some significant extent. In chapter 6, I develop some arguments to the effect that, given the account of the lidea of reflective equilibrium sketched in this essay, moral beliefs are

!significantly less justified than many nonmoral beliefs, at least insofar las a coherentist approach to epistemic justification along the lines ~ketched in this chapter is applied also to them.

CHAPTER 3

THE ROLE OF NONMORAL BELIEFS

An important element in moral reasoning is the consideration of nonmoral (empirical and perhaps metaphysical) issues, such as; what the consequences of some action will be; what the agent's intentions were; what nonmoral properties certain acts, states, institutions, or persons have, etc. The reason is obviously that we judge actions, persons, institutions, etc, to be right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust, etc, because of their nonmoral properties. The idea of reflective equilibrium should in some way account for this fact. The aim of chapter 3 is to explore how this should be done, and to discuss problems related to that project. The plan of the chapter is as follows. In section 3.1, some alternative ways of accounting for the fact that nonmoral beliefs play a role in moral reasoning are discussed. In section 3.2, I discuss the role of background theories, and the substance and significance of the distinction between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium. Sections 3.3 and 3.4 are devoted to some issues of merely indirect relevance. Suppose that the set of one's moral beliefs, though consistent when viewed in isolation, is inconsistent with some of one's highly justified nonmoral beliefs. This might indicate that some of one's moral beliefs are unjustified. However, perhaps also the converse holds. Perhaps nonmoral beliefs may reasonably be revised if they should conflict with moral beliefs. This is discussed in section 3.3. Moreover, a set of beliefs may be coherent relative to one account of coherence and incoherent relative to another. Suppose our system is incoherent relative to a specific account of coherence. Does this indicate that the account is unjustified (for us)? How should the account of coherence

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relevant to justification be specified - externally, or relative to the person and her system? Such issues are considered in section 3.4. The discussions of chapter 3 are summarized in section 3.5. 3.1

NONMORAL BELIEFS AND COHERENCE

Moral beliefs often explain, entail, or conflict with other moral beliefs only if some context of nonmoral assumptions is presupposed. For instance, hedonistic utilitarianism does not by itself conflict with, or entail, the view that it was wrong of USA to wage war against Iraq, but only in conjunction with claims about the consequences of USA's war. Suppose that a moral belief n, held by a person A, logically implies another moral belief m, also held by A, in conjunction with a consistent set N of nonmoral assumptions.! Under what conditions, if any, does this fact justify A in holding m? Consider the following proposals: (1) The members of N are true. (2) The members of N are accepted by A. (3) A is justified in accepting the members of N. (1) seems irrelevant in this context. For instance, suppose that A believes with good reason that the members of N are false. In this case, it seems implausible to hold that the fact that n implies m in conjunction with the members of N justifies A in holding m. Moreover, suppose that the members of N are false. If A is justified in accepting the members of N, and there is no reason to think they are false, it is implausible to claim that their falsity disqualifies m from being justified for A in virtue of being supported by n. In the case of the justification of nonmoral beliefs, we do not usually exclude the possibility of someone being justified in holding a belief even if her belief is based on false but justified premises. There is no reason to hold a different view in the case of the justification of moral beliefs. (2) is hardly sufficient in order for n to support m in a sense relevant to the justification of m for A. The mere fact that I justifiedly believe that my name is Folke Tersman does not justify me in believing that there are intelligent beings in the Andromeda galaxy, even if, for 1 The following discussion applies equally well to other fonns of evidential sup oft.

THE ROLE OF NONMORAL BELIEFS

55

some irrational reason, I believe that I would not have been named Folke Tersman unless there were intelligent beings in the Andromeda galaxy. Moreover, nor does (2) combined with (1) seem sufficient. The nonmoral assumptions relevant to our moral beliefs often concern extremely complicated empirical issues, such as the total consequences of some action, etc. The fact that e.g. hedonistic utilitarianism entails A's considered judgments in conjunction with a set of true empirical . assumptions is a matter of luck unless A at the same time is justified in accepting these assumptions. Therefore, this fact does not reasonably indicate that A is justified in accepting hedonistic utilitarianism - the concept of epistemic justification was more or less invented to exclude cases of knowledge as a result of luck. These reasonings suggest that A must at least to some extent be justified in accepting the members of N. Otherwise, the fact that n implies m in conjunction with the members of N does not indicate that m is justified for A. The view underlying this claim is simply that a person must be justified in accepting all the premises of an argument in order for the argument to justify her in accepting its conclusion.! Given the terminology adopted in chapter 2, the fact that nonmoral beliefs play a role in moral reasoning can be expressed in the following way: some of the beliefs that are positively relevant to our moral beliefs are likely to be nonmoral. The conclusion that the extent to which our moral beliefs are justified is affected by the extent to which we are justified in holding those of our nonmoral beliefs that are positively relevant to our moral beliefs is in a way already accounted for by the view sketched in section 2.2. On this view, the extent to which the nonmoral beliefs that are positively relevant to our moral beliefs cohere with our system affects the extent to which our moral beliefs cohere with our systen1. Thus, it also affects their justification. However, in a sense, this view presupposes that the account of justification sketched in section 2.2 is applicable also to nonmoral beliefs, and this should perhaps be left open. Anyway, in view of this reasoning, a further condition on the state of reflective equilibrium might be: if a person A is in the state of reflective equilibrium she is 1 This view should be qualified in accordance with the suggestion made in section 2.2 in connection with the discussion of the definition of the concept of "positively relevant" (see the second disjunct of conditio~ili2}' -------------------

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significantly justified in holding those of her nonmoral beliefs that are positively relevant to any of her moral beliefs. The reasonings of this section suggest how another feature of our practice of justifying moral claims may be accounted for, namely:

To consider, and form justified beliefs about, relevant nonmoral issues. In many cases, moral beliefs cohere with one's system in virtue of being supported by other moral beliefs in conjunction with nonmoral assumptions (e.g. about the consequences of actions one judges to be morally right or wrong, etc). Above, I argued that the extent to which we are justified in accepting these nonmoral claims is relevant to the justification of the moral beliefs in question. Moreover, a necessary condition for being in the state of reflective equilibrium is that we are significantly justified in holding all our nonmoral beliefs that are positively. relevant to our moral beliefs. Thus, thorough examination of relevant empirical issues is essential in the attempt to achieve the state of reflective equilibrium and justified moral beliefs. This includes, perhaps, imagining oneself in the shoes of persons who are affected by some action one judges to be right or wrong, in order to form justified beliefs about the effects of the actions on their welfare and interests. 3.2

BACKGROUND THEORIES AND WIDE REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM

Norman Daniels's account of the distinction between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium is roughly as follo\vs. Narrow reflective equilibrium is reached when a set of moral principles has been brought to "fit" or "coincide" with our considered moral judgments. Wide reflective equilibrium is reached only if the principles are also shown to be favoured with reference to their fit with a set of "philosophical background theories". However, this characterization of the distinction is somewhat vague, and in assessing its epistemological significance, it is important to see what it more precisely amounts to. What does Daniels have in mind when he speaks of "philosophical background theories", and how are they supposed to support moral principles? In exploring issues such as these, I find it useful to focus on how a specific kind of philosophical theories may be pertinent to moral prin-

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ciples - theories of personal identity. There are several reasons why a theory of personal identity may seem a promising candidate for a background theory. Many moral theories and principles make claims about persons - that persons, and only persons, have moral rights and duties, that the punishment for a crime should be restricted to the person who has commited it, etc. Which account of personal identity is most reasonable may, therefore, be relevant to the assessement of a moral theory. This is acknowledged by Daniels. Daniels thinks that the moral theory of John Rawls is a particular instance of a wide reflective equilibrium, and includes as one of Rawls's background theories a "conception" or theory of the person. 1 I will consider what role a theory of personal identity might play in moral reasoning. This in turn will lead me to consider more generally the role of background theories according to the theory of reflective equilibrium. 3.2.1 Parfit's personal identity A well-known attempt to show that theories of personal identity are morally relevant is made by Derek Parfit. 2 Parfit famously distinguishes two views on personal identity - the Simple view and the Complex view - and holds that what view we accept has important effects on what we should believe about certain moral issues: My suggestions are of this fonn: 'The Complex view supports certain [moral] claims.' By 'supports' I mean both 'makes more plausible' and 'helps to explain' My suggestions thus mean: 'If the true view is the Complex, not the Simple, view, certain [moral] claims are more plausible')

The main difference between the Simple and the Complex view is roughly the following: on the Complex view, the fact that A and Bare

1 "Reflective Equilibrium and Archimedean Points", Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (1980), p. 93. 2 For instance in Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. But see also "Later Selves and Moral Principles", in Montefiore, A. (ed.), Philosophy and Personal Relations, London: Routledge, 1973, pp. 137-169. 3 "Later Selves and Moral Principles", p. 142. In Reasons and Persons, Parfit refers to these views as "Reductionism" and "Non-reductionism" respectively.

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the same person, if they are, is analyzable in terms of other facts about A and B and the relations between A and B. Some Complex view theorists hold that personal identity is essentially a matter of psychological continuity. Parfit characterizes psychological continuity as "the holding of overlapping chains of strong connectedness", where "strong connectedness" holds between A at to and B at tl if there are a significant number of direct psychological connections between A at to and B at tI. 1 An example of one such connection is that B at tl remembers having some of the experiences A had at to. However, Parfit mentions also other connections: Besides direct memories, there are several other kinds of direct psychological connection. One such connection is that which holds between an intention and the later act in which this intention is carried out. Other such direct connections are those with hold when a belief, or a desire, or any other psychological feature, continues to be had. 2

The Simple view denies that personal identity is analyzable in terms of anything else. On the Simple view, personal identity involves, in Parfit's terminology, a "deep further fact", distinct from physical and psychological continuity.3 According to Parfit, this difference accounts for the fact that the Simple view and the Complex view support different conclusions in a number of moral issues. The moral positions supported by the Complex view are, unlike those supported by the Simple view, often utilitarian in spirit. If personal identity is what the Complex view says it is, then, it is held, it is less plausible to focus morally upon the person, the subject of experiences, and more plausible to focus on those experiences themselves. For instance, "we are right to ignore whether experiences come within the same or different lives".4 Given its emphasis on impersonal maximization, utilitarianism explains and accounts for this fact. Therefore, utilitarianism is supported by the Complex view. This is a consideration in favour of utilitarianism, according to Parfit, since we 1 Reasons and Persons, p. 206.

2 Ibid, pp. 205-206.

3 Ibid, p. 325. 4 Ibid, p. 341.

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have strong independent reasons for accepting the Complex and rejecting the Simple view. Among the moral issues Parfit believes are affected by what view we take on personal identity are some concerning distributive ethics. Parfit claims that a shift from the Simple to the Complex view on personal identity affects both the "scope" and the "weight" it is plausible to assign to certain principles of distributive justice. For instance, consider The Principle of Equality. This principle tells us that benefits and burdens should be distributed equally in a given population. The shift to the Complex view has, according to Parfit, two effects on the scope of this principle. The fact that two individuals, A and B, are different persons is "less deep" on the Complex view than on the Simple view. It is essentially a matter of the absence of certain psychological or physical connections between A and B, and is therefore very much like the separateness between weakly connected parts of the life of one person. This is seen by Parfit as supporting the claim that, insofar as The Principle of Equality should be assigned any weight at all, it should be applied not only to the distribution of benefits and burdens between persons, but also to the distribution within the life of one and the same person. Moreover, the Complex view denies that personal identity involves a "deep further fact", distinct from physical and psychological continuity. According to Parfit, compensation within one and the same life (i.e. that a burden at time to could be compensated by a benefit at tl) presupposes such a "further fact". Since the Complex view denies that personal identity involves a "further fact", it denies that there can be such compensation within a life. Therefore, unconstrained maximization of benefits and minimization of burdens is seen to be unreasonable, not only in a group of different persons, but also with respect to different parts of the life of the same person, even if these parts are strongly connected. The scope of The Principle of Equality is affected in that the units over which it operates "shrink to people's states at particular times". 1 The changes in the scope of The Principle of Equality do not, as Parfit notes, support utilitarianism, quite the contrary. The effect of the Complex view supporting utilitarianism concerns the weight it is 1 Ibid, p. 346.

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plausible to assign to The Principle of Equality. Parfit claims that the shift from the Simple to the Complex view suggests that it is plausible to assign less weight to it. Parfit's reasoning in support of this claim is not transparent, but here is a rough paraphrase. The Principle of Equality is impressed by the fact that the individuals in a group are different persons. This is why it is wrong to burden someone in the group merely to benefit someone else. On the Complex view, the fact that these individuals are different persons is something "less deep" than it is on the Simple view. When we recognize ·that the separateness of persons is what the Complex view says that it is, it is plausible to conclude that it is of less moral significance. The Principle of Equality depends on the assumption that the fact that different individuals are different persons is of great moral significance. Therefore, it should be assigned less weight, or no weight. I find nothing implausible about Pafit's general strategy. Discovering what a fact, previously thought to be of moral importance, essentially involves or amounts to, may plausibly change our minds about its moral significance. In a way similar to Parfit, Torbjom Tannsjo argues that if strict materialism turns out to be true, hedonism would no longer be a tenable view. 1 3.2.2 Criticism by Rawls and Daniels Parfit's position is criticized by John Rawls and Norman Daniels. 2 Rawls develops a general argument against attempts to adjudicate between traditional moral theories on the basis of what we can find out about personal identity. Daniels elaborates this argument, but he also states an objection specifically to Parfit's arguments. I will begin by considering Daniels's specific objection, and then discuss the general argument. Understandably, Daniels has problems in grasping what Parfit means when talking about the "depth" of facts, and the "weight" of principles, 1 Tannsjo, T., "Moral Doubts about Strict Materialism", Inquiry 30 (1987), pp. 451-458. 2 See Rawls, "The Independence of Moral Theory", esp. pp. 15-20; and Daniels, N., "Moral Theory and the Plasticity of Persons", The Monist 62 (1979), pp. 265287.

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but this is not his main criticism. His main objection is very simple. A premise of Parfit's reasoning is that the "depth" of the fact that two individuals are different persons has implications for its moral significance. If it is "less deep", then it is of less moral significance. According to Parfit, if the Complex view is correct, the fact that two individuals are different persons is "less deep". Therefore, principles presupposing that it is of great moral significance (e.g. The Principle of Equality) should be assigned less or no weight. Daniels points out that Parfit has not provided an argument for the central assumption that the "depth" of a fact affects its moral significance in the way suggested by Parfit. He claims that such an argument is necessary in order for Parfit's reasoning to be plausible. 1 Leaving aside for one moment the obscure notion of "depth", Daniels's reasoning can be paraphrased in the following way. Suppose that the fact that two individuals are different persons is discovered to be of a certain nature. This does not by itself imply moral conclusions. It does so only in a context of moral assumptions. 2 Daniels's point seems merely to be that Parfit's reasoning is based on certain implicit moral assumptions - e.g the assun1ption that, if the fact that two individuals are different persons merely is a matter of the absence of certain psychological or physical connections between them, it is of little moral importance - for which he has provided no defence. However, pointing this out is of course not sufficient for disqualifying Parfit's argument. Maybe the implicit moral assumptions are plausible. Admittedly, Parfit says nothing to support this. On the other hand, Daniels says nothing to prove the contrary. Let us tum to Rawls's and Daniels's general argument. The argument was first stated by Rawls, but was later elaborated by Daniels. I will consider Daniels's version, since he has stated it somewhat more clearly than Rawls. The argument is intended to establish the claim that the philosophy of mind (conceived as a broadly empirical and/or metaphysical discipline), and in particular what the philosophy of mind

1 "Moral Theory and the Plasiticity of Persons", p. 269. Maybe the "depth" of a fact simply refers to its moral significance. In this case, Daniels objection may be construed as challenging the assumption that the fact that two individuals are different persons really is "less deep" on the Complex than on the Simple view. 2 This point is made also by Margaret Holmgren in "The Wide and Narrow of Reflective Equilibrium", p. 55.

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can teach us about personal identity, radically underdetermines theory selection in ethics. This claim - I will refer to it as "the underdetermination claim" - can be interpreted and supported in different ways. I will distinguish three different interpretations. 1. According to the first interpretation, the underdetermination claim is essentially the thesis that, even if there is a uniquely true account of personal identity, and even if we have conclusively established its correctness, we would still not be committed to accept any particular moral theory. The reason is that no account of personal identity by itself logically implies a moral theory. However, this thesis seems trivial, and could hardly be what Daniels intends. 1 2. Under another interpretation, Daniels and Rawls deny that there are

any plausible moral assumptions such that any of the traditional moral theories; given these assumptions, is supported by, or conflicts with, what the philosophy of mind can teach us about personal identity.2 This is a clain1 Rawls and Daniels plausibly can be construed as arguing for. Rawls and Daniels think that every traditional moral theory embodies a particular conception or ideal of the person. This ideal in turn "requires" some criterion of personal identity. According to Rawls and Daniels, a constraint or condition reasonably imposed on moral theories is that the ideals of the person they embody, and their corresponding criteria of personal identity, are "feasible".3 This constraint is reminiscent of Kant's dictum "ought implies can". It may be viewed as a moral background assumption in conjunction with which the results of philosophy of mind can help us to adjudicate between different moral theories. At least if we assume that what the philosophy of mind can teach us about personal identity might be relevant in determining the feasibility of ideals of the person. Daniels holds that the feasibility test is "relative to the well-ordered society embodying the relevant conception of the person".4 According 1 But see "Moral Theory and the Plasiticity of Persons", pp. 274 and 28I. 2 For Daniels, the undeterdetermination claim seems to concern mainly the "traditional" moral theories. Ibid, p. 274. 3 Ibid, p. 279.

4 Ibid, p. 272.

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to Daniels, to every (traditional and fully developed) moral conception there corresponds a "well-ordered society". This is a society in which people accept the relevant moral conception and where the basic social institutions satisfy the principles of the conception, etc. I Claiming that the feasibility test is relative in this sense is essential for Daniels, since he thinks that "different societies create different sorts of persons", and that "different criteria of identity are 'feasible' for persons living under different social arrangements") Daniels goes on to argue that neither the philosophy of mind nor "general social theory" provides us with reason to doubt that each of the conceptions of the person embodied by the traditional moral theories are feasible in the relevant, relative way. He concludes that what the philosophy of mind can teach us about personal identity radically underdetermines choice between the traditional moral theories. I do not wish to contest Daniels's claim about the feasibility of the different conceptions of the person embodied by the traditional moral theories, mainly because I find it difficult to see how such claims can be established or tested. Thus, let us grant that the feasibility constraint, together with the results of the philosophy of mind and "general social theory", cannot help us to adjudicate between the traditional moral theories. However, there may be other plausible moral assumptions such that the results of the philosophy of mind support some moral theories and provide us with reason to reject others given these assumptions. Therefore, the argument from the relativity of feasibility provides at most rather weak support for the very general underdetermination claim. 3. While the underdetermination claim under the first interpretations denies that any conclusions for morality would follow even if an account of the nature of personal identity could be established as correct, the third intepretation denies that there is such an account for the philosophy of mind to discover. This would mean that the philosophy of mind underdetermines theory choice in ethics, even if

I See Daniels, "Reflective Equilibrium and Archimedean Points", pp. 90-93, for a fuller explication of the concept. 2 "Moral Theory and the Plasticity of Persons", pp. 273 and 279 respectively.

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some particular account of personal identity conditionally supports some moral theories over others. There is some support in the text for such an interpretation. Daniels thinks that there is no "prior, deep and determinate fact of the matter about the nature of persons",l or that the nature of persons there to discover for the philosophy of mind at least is very "sparse": Even if some discipline, say (a 'broadly empirical') philosophy of mind, could still detect a common nature (or essential nature) [...] it would still underdetermine theory selection in ethics. The common nature would be too sparse or thin a notion to force a choice between traditional moral theories.2

However, the claim that there is no substantial common nature of persons is seldom distinguished from another claim, namely that the philosophy of mind cannot discover such a nature. Daniels claims that "the method of philosophy of mind [...] cannot determine a criterion of personal identity but only a family of such criteria", and that our "philosophical 'data' on the concept of personal identity, our judgments about puzzle cases, do not reveal a pure or natural fact of the matter about personal identity". 3 Maybe Daniels takes the second claim to be an argument for the first. The inference from epistemological underdetermination to ontologic indeterminacy is not obviously plausible, but perhaps it is so in this particular case. Anyway, it is clear that to the extent that he offers an argument for the first claim, it concerns difficulties in establishing what the truth about personal identity is. Much of the work in the philosophy of personal identity consists in examining what Daniels calls "puzzle cases" - i.e. transplant and duplication cases, longevity cases, fission and fusion cases. He thinks that it is unclear what we are supposed to learn from such cases. Our judgments about those cases differ, but what are these disagreements about? Are they about if and how we should change our existing concept of personal identity? Or do they concern the actual nature of persons, something we are supposed to be able to discover not only through 1 Ibid, p. 273.

2 Ibid, p. 274. 3 Ibid, pp. 273 and 280 respectively.

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conceptual analysis but also through broadly scientific studies of persons? The mere fact that our judgments on puzzle cases differ does not, of course, imply that there is no fact of the matter about the nature of personal identity. Rather, it is the unclarity in the aim of the method that leads Daniels to believe in this indeterminacy. However, the distinction between questions answered through conceptual analysis, and questions requiring scientific studies, is notoriously unclear. It would be dubious to conclude that personal identity is something indeterminate merely from the fact that there is an unclarity in this respect. Daniels has not provided a conclusive argument for the underdetermination claim under the third interpretation. However, suppose it were established. Daniels takes the indeterminacy to imply that moral considerations become relevant to the question of personal identity in a special way. If different criteria of personal identity yield different judgments in certain puzzle cases, then, since there is no fact of the matter as to which of those criteria is true, we may have to legislate how the concept of personal identity should be applied in such cases. A criterion of personal identity is perhaps primarily needed to handle moral questions - e.g. deciding if and how a crime should be punished, etc. Therefore, it is reasonable to make our decision on the basis of moral considerations. Daniels concludes that "we cannot appeal to the prior acceptability of a particular theory of the person, considered in isolation from its embodiement in moral theory, in our defence of [a particular] moral theory". 1 However, I will suggest an alternative position, also recognizing the relevance of moral considerations. Rather than indeterminacy, it emphasizes the underdetermination of theories of personal identity by the philosophy of mind. If Parfit is correct in claiming that the Complex view supports utilitarianism, this could be seen as an argument against this view. Parfit seems to reject such a line of reasoning: If the truth about personal identity has these implications, most of us would find this deeply disturbing. It may be thought that, if these are the implications of the

1 "Moral Theory and the Plasiticity of Persons", p. 281.

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I disagree with Parfit. If a theory of personal identity has certain objectionable moral implications, this may constitute evidence against the theory (even if it happens to be true). The point is of course that Parfit has not conclusively shown the Complex view to be correct. Excluding the acceptability of the moral implications of some theory as possible evidence for or against that theory takes an independent argument. No such argument is provided by Parfit. An implication of this alternative position would be that the philosophy of mind underdetermines theory selection in ethics, but in a rather trivial sense; a sense not excluding that a theory of personal identity may provide genuine support for moral theories, at least given a coherentist view of the notion of genuine support. Let us summarize the main points of section 3.2.2. Rawls and Daniels object to Parfir's attempt to show that different views on personal identity support different moral positions. Daniels insists that the Complex view supports the moral conclusions Parfit thinks it does only if certain moral views are presupposed, views for which Parfit has provided no defence. This point seems reasonable. Maybe it could be generalized: an account of personal identity provides support for a moral position only if certain other moral assumptions are presupposed, and in order for the moral position to obtain genuine support from the account, these background assumptions must in tum be plausible. However, Daniels wants to establish a more radical claim. He argues that what the philosophy of mind (conceved as a "broadly empirical science") can teach us about personal identity is irrelevant to the assessment of the traditional moral theories. This is partly because what the philosophy of mind can teach us really is very little. The results of the philosophy of mind might be relevant to the "feasibility~' of a conception of personhood, and this might be relevant to the plausibility of a moral theory. However, no result produced by the philosophy of mind indicates that any of the conceptions of the person embodied by the traditional moral theories is not "feasible" in the relevant sense.

1 Reasons and Persons, p. 324.

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Moreover, it is doubful whether there is a fact of the matter as to which of a set of competing theories of personal identity is true. Theories of personal identity are not true or false in an ordinary sense, but perhaps "adequate" or "inadequate" in handling moral issues. And the decision of which theory is "adequate" Should be made on the basis of moral considerations. Therefore, even if it is found that a given theory conditionally supports one moral position, while another theory supports another position, turning to the philosophy of mind for deciding between the positions is futile. However, Daniels has not convincingly defended the alleged indeterminacy of personal identity, and his reasoning about the "feasibility" of conceptions of the person is hardly sufficient for establishing the irrelevance of the philosophy of mind to morality. Finally, I noted that even if we are realists about personal identity, it might still be reasonable to let moral considerations direct us in determining the truth about personal identity. This is a source of underdetermination of theory choice in ethics by the philosophy of mind, but of a rather harmless kind, unobjectionable to a coherentist. And it is compatible with the view that a theory of personal identity might provide genuine support for a moral position or principle. 3.2.3 The distinction wide/narrow reconsidered What can we learn from the discussion above about the distinction between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium? Parfit's arguments suggest that philosophical theories, for instance about personal identity, might occur as premises in sound arguments for or against moral positions. This is not refuted by Daniels's equally plausible complaint that such an argument is likely to rely on moral assumptions, and that the reasonableness of these assumptions is relevant to the soundness of the argument. Let the difference between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium be that a person has reached the state of wide reflective equilibrium only if she holds views on various philosophical issues (personal identity, decision theory, moral discourse, etc) that are positively relevant to (some of) her moral views. This need not be the case for a person in narrow reflective equilibrium. Could Daniels's suggestion, that the moral beliefs of a person in wide reflective equilibrium are

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likely to more justified than those of a person in narrow reflective equilibrium, be defended with reference to the account of the theory of reflective equilibrium developed in chapter 2? Daniels's emphasis on wide reflective equilibrium reflects the view that the extent to which a moral belief, directly or indirectly, is evidentially connected to the rest of a person's beliefs is relevant to its justification. Roughly, the more other beliefs of the person that are, directly or indirectly, involved in the support of the belief, and the more complex the set of these beliefs is, the more likely the belief is to be significantly justified. In wide reflective equilibrium, the principles accepted by a person are not only supported by her considered judgments, but also by her views on various philosophical issues. 'The desirability of this state of affairs is accounted for by the theory of reflective equilbrium developed in chapter 2. Thus, it turns out that another feature of the procedure of reflective equilibrium may be accounted for by the theory of reflective equilibrium: To introduce and consider "background theories" on philosophical issues.

The initial plausibility of Parfit's arguments suggests that we do in fact have moral intuitions such that differents views on personal identity might support or conflict with other of our moral beliefs given these intuitions. The same holds, I think, for positions on many other philosophical issues - decision theory, moral discourse, etc. These intuitions are possibly quite abstract and theoretical, and such that, if we had no view on personal identity, etc, they would not be evidentially connected to the rest of our moral beliefs in the appropriate sense (i.e. the sense relevant to coherence). In order for a person A to be in the state of reflective equilibrium, for every moral belief m held by A, each of the rest of her moral beliefs must belong to some C-set (and C*-set) for m contained by the system of A. Thus, considering and eventually forming views on personal identity, and clarifying and making explicit the relevant underlying moral intuitions, is essential in order to reach the state of reflective equilibrium. This will lead us to reject some of our moral beliefs and adopt others - Le. beliefs that are supported by the views we find plausible on personal identity, etc.

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MUTUAL REVISABILITY?

A consistent subset of our moral beliefs may logically conflict with a consistent set of nonmoral claims - e.g. empirical statements. Therefore, moral beliefs may, in a sense, be tested against empirical evidence. Of course, this is not to say that moral beliefs may be tested in isolation against empirical evidencee Rather, they are tested "holistically". However, this should come as no surprise. The same holds for scientific theories, since they too have observational consequences only in conjunction with some set of auxiliary hypotheses. 1 If a consistent set of our moral beliefs conflicts with a consistent set of our nonmoral beliefs, this indicates that (some of) the moral beliefs are not justified for us, at least if the relevant nonmoral beliefs are justified. But does the converse ever hold? If not, there are, so to speak, two methodologies involved here - one for moral beliefs and one for nonmoral beliefs. On this view, whether the empirical beliefs of a person are justified is independent of whether they conflict with her moral beliefs, and such conflicts do not call for revisions among her empirical beliefs. This view seems probably obviously correct for most people, but it has been challenged. For several decades, Morton White has argued that cases could be imagined where it would be reasonable to reject empirical rather than moral beliefs in case of conflict, and thus to let our moral views guide us in the search of nonmoral truth. 2 The purpose of the present section is to discuss this thesis. 3.3.1 Sensory perceptions and moral emotions White shares Quine's holistic view on confirmation, and agrees with him in thinking that this view does not justify a distinction between analytic and synthetic sentences. Holism is the view that (theoretical) sentences are not individually confronted with experience. They are 1 See e.g. Quine, W.V., "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", in From a Logical Point of View, New York: Harper & Row, 1961, pp. 20-46. 2 See his Toward Reunion in Philosophy, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956; What Is and What Ought to be Done, New York: Oxford University Press, 1981; and "Normative Ethics, Normative Epistemology and Quine's Holism", in Hahn, L.E. & Schilpp, P.A. (eds.), The Philosophy of W.V. Quine, La Salle: Open Court, 1985, pp. 649-661.

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tested only in conjunction with other sentences - Quine sometimes talks of what is testable as "the whole of science" - since only conjunctions of sentences have observational consequences. This view implies that (theoretical) sentences have no empirical content of their own, and thus, given an empiricist view of meaning, no determinate meanings. This is why the distinction between sentences true solely because of their meanings, and sentences being true also because of the ways of the world, is dubious. White argues that the dualism between the "normative" and the "descriptive" is equally dubious, at least if taken to imply that normative sentences are tested in a way fundamentally different from the way descriptive sentences are tested. The holistic view on confirmation should, in his opinion, be extended to ethics. He claims that conjunctions containing both normative and descriptive sentences may be holistically tested. He sees himself as thereby striking "yet another blow for methodological monism". 1 Let us examine the holistic view on confirmation underlying this line of reasoning a little closer. White represents Quine as distinguishing between "(a) the descriptive scientific thinker, (b) the body of purely descriptive science that such a thinker uses as a tool for organizing or linking sensory experiences, and (c) those sensory experiences tllemselves".2 White attributes to Quine the view that "the sensory experiences themselves" provide the evidence for our descriptive beliefs. He implicitly accepts a distinction between sentences that may be confirmed or disconfirmed individually by sensory experiences (observation sentences), and others (theoretical sentences) that are confirmed or disconfirmed only to the extent that they, together with other sentences, imply directly confirmable observation sentences. In saying that a conjunction of sentences may by "confirmed by", "in accord with" or "falsified by" sensory experiences,3 what does White mean? Consider the following statement: [LJet us assume that (b) [a conjunction of statementsJ logically implies statement E, which reports an experience. Let us also assume that we do not have the experience

1 "Nonnative Ethics, Normative Epistemology and Quine's Holism", p. 661. 2 Ibid, p. 651. 3 What Is and What Ought to be Done, p. 25.

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which it reports. For example, E may report a certain experience of redness but in fact it seems to us excactly as if we were seeing something green. In that case, we have had a recalcitrant experience and E is false. Now ifE is false, then (b) is false. If (b) is false, then at least one of its conjuncts is false and should be denied. [...] So far I have laid most emphasis on this right to reject a conjunct [...] when experience disappoints our expectations, but there will, of course, be many occasions when experience is in accord with our expectations and therefore confirms a conjunction [....] 1

Thus, conjunctions of our beliefs may imply observation reports. These are either "in accord" or "not in accord" with our sensory experiences. If not, we must reject some of the conjuncts, otherwise the conjunction is to some extent confirmed. 1bat an observation report is "in accord" with our sensory experiences seems simply to mean that it is true i.e. that the sensory experiences it says will occur, in fact do occur. In defending the "epistemic right" to revise empirical statements against moral statements, White acknowledges, besides sensory experiences, another source of evidence - moral emotions. White thinks that while the aim of "descriptive science" is to organize sensory experiences, the aim of "normative science" is "rationally linking certain sensory experiences and certain emotions or feelings".2 Hence, emotions may playa role analogous to that played by sensory experiences. Consider a case where a consistent conjunction of our beliefs, including both moral and empirical beliefs, implies a judgment of the form "it was wrong of A to X". In examining the case of A doing X, suppose we do not experience the appropriate feeling of disapproval - that is, the feeling "corresponding" to the judgment. In this case, the conjunction is shown to be incorrect, and at least one of its conjuncts must be rejected. Deciding which conjunct is to be rejected requires careful examination, but White's point is that it might tum out to be one of the nonmoral conjuncts. I think the view on confirmation underlying White's position is dubious. This is not merely because of his mentalistic talk of sensory experiences. 3 A problem with his suggestion concerning the confir1 Ibid, p. 26. See also p. 22. 2 Ibid, p. 30. 3 Of course, Quine has long since supplanted talk of sensations, etc, with talk of "surface irritations", etc,. This is noted by White, but he believes it to be of no signi-

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mation of "mixed" conjunctions is to determine precisely which moral emotions are "appropriate". Which emotions confirm which judgments? Another problem is that it might be questioned if the fact that we do or do not experience certain moral emotions in certain situations always is relevant to the truth of moral judgments about those situations. It seems to me that whether such facts are relevant depends on why the emotions are aroused. If the fact that we approve of an action is due to our having been raised as Nazis, this might be an argument against the rightness of the action, rather than for it. There is also another worry. Recall that White distinguishes two sorts of beliefs or sentences - those testable in conjunction with other beliefs, and those implied by such conjunctions (e.g. predictions of sensory experiences or moral emotions). Sentences belonging to the latter category are testable in isolation (in the case of predictions of sensory experiences, they are confirmed if true, and disconfirmed if false). Unless we are, implausibly, extreme foundationalists, we must recognize that we may in some cases be unaware of, or even hold false beliefs about, what sensory experiences or moral emotions we are entertaining. Whether a conjunction of our beliefs is confirmed and justified by our sensory experiences may, therefore, be something we are competely unaware of. We may even, perhaps with good reason, believe that it is disconfirmed. Would the sensations (or emotions) still justify our belief? The truth about what sensory experiences we are entertaining may simply not be available to us. What is available is rather other beliefs, e.g.. concerning what sensory experiences we are having, what their causes are, etc. These beliefs provide the reasons we have for accepting or rejecting some hypothesis, not sensory experiences themselves. 1 3.3.2 Taking moral beliefs seriously What is the upshot of this discussion concerning the issue of whether nonmoral beliefs may be revised against moral beliefs? Here is a suggestion: if moral beliefs are acknowledged as beliefs, capable of being ficance in the present context. See "Nonnative Ethics, Nonnative Epistemology and Quine's Holism", p. 658. 1 For some adherents of this view, see Lehrer, Knowledge, p. 17; and Davidson, "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge", p. 311.

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true and false, justified and unjustified, supported by evidence (i.e. other beliefs), etc, we must accept that it could be reasonable to reject a nonmoral belief in case of conflict with moral beliefs. As always in such cases, whether it is reasonable to reject a nonmoral belief must be assessed in view of the evidence we have for or against the involved beliefs in the particular case at hand. Prima facie, it appears to me that straightforward empirical beliefs about e.g. the number of people in a room, the age of the earth, etc, are not in general candidates for being rejected in case of conflict with moral beliefs. Our empirical evidence for such beliefs is likely to be overriding. More plausible candidates are surely philosophical theories, underdetermined as they are by empirical evidence - e.g. theories of free will, the concept of alternative, moral discourse, deontic logic, decision theory, and, as suggested in section 3.2.2, personal identity. If nonmoral beliefs might be rejected because they conflict with moral beliefs, the justification of nonmoral beliefs is in part dependent on their coherence with moral beliefs. This is true not only of nonmoral beliefs directly involved in conflicts with moral beliefs, since our evidence for those beliefs might be reconsidered should we decide to reject them. Further, and possibly very far-reaching revisions among our nonmoral beliefs could thereby be induced. As White thinks, a consequence might be that the distinction moral/nonmoral is somewhat blurred, at least if we think that the content of a belief has something to do with how its truth is determined. The distinction could perhaps still be upheld, but maybe a more relaxed attitude towards it is called for, admitting of degrees of moral and nonmoral content.

3.3.3 An objection Is the position suggested in section 3.3.2 plausible? Reasons for being suspicious of moral beliefs in particular cases, and thus for rejecting moral rather than nonmoral beliefs in case of conflict, can easily be imagined. We may come to realize that they were formed under unreliable conditions, or that they conflict with plausible moral theories, etc. However, maybe there are general reasons for being sceptical towards moral beliefs, reasons indicating that it is never reasonable to reject nonmoral beliefs in case of conflict with moral beliefs. For instance, it could be argued that moral beliefs, unlike empirical beliefs,

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are never justified to any significant extent, since there is no reliable belief-forming procedure for moral beliefs. This seems to be the main upshot of Gilbert Harman's argument against moral realism. 1 Harman sketches an example where someone, when confronted with a situation, spontaneously forms both empirical and moral beliefs about it. In at least some such cases, and with respect to at least some empirical beliefs, the fact that someone has come to hold them is best explained with reference to their truth. This is never the case with moral beliefs. Morality is therefore altogether immune fron1 observational testing. This Harman holds to be the "basic problen1 with ethics".2 The main reason Harman mentions in support of the claim that moral beliefs are never best explained with reference to their truth is that we lack a "believable" account of how the supposed moral facts could play a role in generating true moral beliefs, while we have such an account in the case of some natural facts. 3 For instance, consider colours. The fact that some object is, say, red implies that its surface has a certain microphysical structure. This structure is responsible for the fact that the surface, when illuminated with white light, reflects photons at certain wavelengths while absorbing others. If the object had been, say, green, photons at other wavelengths had been reflected, and so on. The light reflected by the object would, if we were rightly placed with our eyes open, etc, hit the retinas of our eyes, and through the optical nerve cause certain cerebral processes in the visual cortex and other parts of the brain. Subsequently, the causal chain ends up in the belief that the object is red. This account justifies us in thinking that the fact that we believe that some object is, say, red might best be explained with reference to the assumption that the object is red. There is no similar account in the case of moral facts. Therefore, our holding a moral belief is never best explained with reference to the assumption that it is true.

1 See Harman's The Nature of Morality, New York: Oxford University Press, 1977; and "Moral Explanations of Natural Facts - Can Moral Claims Be Tested Against Moral Reality?", The Southern Journal ofPhilosophy 24 (suppl.) (1986), pp. 57-68. 2 The Nature ofMorality, pp. vii-viii. 3 See "Moral Explanations of Natural Facts Against Moral Reality?", pp. 62-64, 66.

Can Moral Claims Be Tested

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Torbjom Tannsjo objects to this reasoning. 1 He argues that the account sketched above is seriously incomplete. For instance, we do not know how the cerebral processes caused by light hitting our retinas end up in beliefs with specific propositional contents. Strictly speaking, therefore, we know neither how moral nor natural facts may generate true beliefs. Moreover, the account is formulated in tenns of certain microphysical facts. We may know how the fact that the surface of an object has a certain microphysical structure, but not how the fact that it is red, may affect our sensory organs. The relevance of these considerations is not entirely clear. Granting that we lack knowledge of the final - "semantical" - link in the causal chain, it might still be argued that we know substantially more in the case of how the colours of objects, as opposed to the rightness of actions, may generate true beliefs. And this difference may justify us in thinking that a belief about the colour of an object, unlike any moral beliefs, might be best explained with reference to the assumption that it is true. A response to Tannsjo's second worry is that it is sufficient if some of the beliefs in an area might be best explained with reference to their truth in order for us to have knowledge and justified beliefs in that area. The point is that no moral beliefs are best explained by their truth, while at least some empirical beliefs are, with reference to the account sketched above. However, this response is to some extent unsatisfactory. Beliefs about microphysical facts seldom enter into the justification of other beliefs. It is even unlikely that people in general hold such beliefs. Therefore, it seems quite irrelevant that such beliefs are best explained by their truth. However, there is a another response to Harman's argument. The account of the causal mechanism sketched above is of rather recent origins. Therefore, letting the issue of whether there is knowledge and justification in an area hinge on our being in possession of such an account seems to imply that there was no empirical knowledge before the account was fonnulated. This is clearly unacceptable. Of course, before that particular account was developed, there may have been others. But letting the question of whether people at that time had knowledge depend on such an empirical assumption is unreasonable. I 1 Tannsjo, Moral Realism, p. 85.

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conclude that Harman's argument fails to show that there is no moral knowledge or justified moral beliefs - or that nonmoral beliefs in principle never may be rejected because they conflict with moral beliefs.! 3.4

COHERENCE SPECIFIED?

EXTERNALLY OR INTERNALLY

Our beliefs may cohere well with our system according to one set of standards of coherence but not according to another. For instance, suppose that the extent to which a belief coheres with a set depends on its evidential relations with the members of that set. The concept of coherence may still be interpreted in different ways, since there may be different opinions as to which relations are properly evidential, etc. Therefore, we may ask: what account of coherence is relevant to the justification of moral beliefs? Several answers could be imagined. In formulating the theory of reflective equilibrium, we could simply state - externally - the account of coherence relevant to justification. If the moral beliefs of a person A do not cohere well with her system given this account, this indicates that her moral beliefs are not justified for her according to the theory. An implication of this view is perhaps that A may believe that her beliefs are highly justified even if they are not. For instance, she might believe that her beliefs cohere well with her system on the basis' of incorrect views about what notion of coherence is relevant to justification. This erratic belief might even be justified according to the theory of reflective equilibrium under this construal - i.e. if it coheres well with her system in the sense specified by the theory. Another suggestion is that the sense of coherence relevant to the justification of A's beliefs is defined by A's own views on coherence. On this construal, the theory claims that the justification of A's beliefs is determined by the extent to which they cohere with A's system given her own standards of coherence. ! However, the fact that we are in possession of such an account in the case of nonmoral beliefs, but not in the case of moral beliefs, might indicate that moral beliefs are generally less justified than nonmoral beliefs (see section 6.2 for a reasoning along this line).

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Moreover, if A's moral beliefs do not cohere well with her system given her own standards of coherence, maybe she should revise the standards rather than the rest of her beliefs. For instance, Quine has suggested that we might be entitled to give up the law of bivalence in order to increase the coherence of our system, and Israel Scheffler claims that "the coherence-rules of a system [...] are theoretically always subject to modification". For instance, he thinks that it might be reasonable to weaken "the rule of incompatibility". 1 Given that there are competing accounts of coherence, a problem with the first suggestion is that it may seem arbitrary to choose one rather than another as relevant to justification, especially in view of the fact that it is doubtful whether there is a truth of the matter as to which account is correct. However, in section 1.2, I claimed that the theory of reflective equilibrium should be construed so that it "rationalizes" our practice of testing and defending moral beliefs. This aim provides a ground for adjudicating between different accounts of coherence in this context. I conclude that the account of coherence relevant to the idea of reflective equilibrium should be specified externally in such a way that the idea accounts for our belief-testing practice in morality.2 The second suggestion is thereby rejected. It has many problems of its own. One problem is that A might hold unreasonable views on coherence, so that coherence as defined by those views does not reasonably amount to justification. In response to this problem, maybe we should require that A's views about coherence must be justified in order for them to be relevant to the justification of her beliefs. When are A's views on coherence justified? Presumably when they cohere well with the rest of her beliefs, but when is that? Perhaps when the rest of her beliefs cohere well with her system given the account of coherence defined by the views in question. However, suppose that A's beliefs cohere badly with her system according to her standards of coherence. Why choose to revise the beliefs rather than the standards? More generally, by what should A's decision be guided in such cases? 1 See Quine, W.V., Word and Object, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1960; and Scheffler, I., "On Justification and Commitment", Journal of Philosophy 51 (1951), p. 183. 2 This aim possibly underdetermines what account of coherence is relevant to the justification of beliefs. This is an instance of a more general underdetermination of theories of epistemic justification by the constraints it is reasonable to impose on such a theory.

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Quine and Scheffler would possibly appeal to some principle of conservatism (Le. that we should follow a "law of least action", holding on to those views in which we are most confident).1 However, such a principle would hardly answer all questions raised by the second suggestion. For instance, would the principle itself be revisable against other beliefs? On my construal of the theory of reflective equilibrium, thus, it is to some extent externalistic - it implies that a person might be justified in holding a belief without her knowing so. This interpretation might be controversial, since the idea of reflective equilibrium is commonly conceived as being radically internalistic. However, some externalism in epistemology is probably unavoidable anyway, in my opinion, since the contents of our beliefs, according to plausible theories of meaning and belief, are to some extent externally determined. 2 3.5

SUMMARY

Let us summarize the main conclusions of this chapter. In section 3.1, I argued that the extent to which a person A is justified in accepting those of her nonmoral beliefs that are positively relevant to a moral belief m is relevant to m's justification for A. If some of the premises of an argument for m contained by the system S of A are nonmoral, it does not justify A in accepting m unless A is to some extent justified in accepting the nonmoral premises. In view of this reasoning, a further condition on the state of reflective equilibrium was stated: if a person A is in the state of reflective equilibrium she is significantly justified in holding all of her nonmoral beliefs that are positively relevant to any of her moral beliefs. No claims were made as to when nonmoral beliefs are justified. In section 3.2, the distinction between narrow and wide reflective equilibrium was considered. It was noted that philosophical theories, such as theories of personal identity, etc, might occur as premises in sound arguments for and against moral clain1s. Thus, our acceptance of such theories might affect the extent to which some of our moral 1 See Scheffler, "On Justification and Commitment", p. 187. 2 See e.g. Burge, T., "Individualism and Psychology", Philosophical Review 95

(1986), pp. 3-45; and Davidson, D., "Knowing One's Own Mind", Proceedings and Adressees of the American Philosophical Association, pp. 441-458.

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7

beliefs cohere with our system, and thus their justification. The emphasis on wide reflective equilibrium is justified to the extent that it stresses that the more of the rest of a person A's beliefs are involved in the support of a moral belief m, and the more complex the interrelations between these beliefs are, the more likely is it that m is significantly justified for A. The conclusions reached in section 3.1 are unaffected by what view we take on the justification of nonmoral beliefs. However, in section 3.3 an issue was considered relevant to this issue. I claimed that, if moral beliefs are acknowledged as beliefs, capable of being true and false, justified and unjustified, etc, then the possibility must be recognized that it could be reasonable to reject nonmoral beliefs if they should conflict with nonmoral beliefs. This would make the justification of nonmoral beliefs at least partly depend on their coherence with moral beliefs. In section 3.4, finally, I discussed an issue based on the insight that a belief might cohere well with a set of beliefs given one set of standards of coherence but not given another. How is the set of standards of coherence relevant to justification to be specified - internally or externally? I argued that it should be specified externally, on the ground that such a specification may be justified by the aim of characterizing the theory of reflective equilibrium so that it accounts for common ways of moral reasoning.

CHAPTER 4

CONSERVATISM

It is often pointed out that there may be mutually incompatible, but equally coherent systems of beliefs. This may seem to indicate that coherence underdetermines justification. 1 In other words, it might suggest that the mere fact that a person's moral beliefs cohere well with her system is not sufficient for them to be justified. As Israel Scheffler puts it, perhaps we need "some way of choosing among internally coherent but mutually incompatible systems".2 The purpose of this chapter is to consider certain candidates for possible additional conditions on justified moral beliefs, in view of the alleged insufficiency of coherence. Common to these candidates is that they take the issue of whether someone holds justified moral beliefs to be determined in some way by the degrees of confidence with which she holds her moral beliefs. These proposals are sympathetic to a kind of epistemic conservatism endorsed by, among others, Gilbert Harman, W.V. Quine and Wilfrid Sellars. 3 The intuitive idea behind this view is that at every point in inquiry, within frames set by coherence considerations, we should follow a "law of least action" - Le. preserve as much as possible of our initial world view, where "preservation" in this context is partly analyzed in terms of confidence. 1 This inference is made e.g. by Robert Fogelin and James Moor (Fogelin, R.J. & Moor, J.H., "Lehrer on Incompatible Though Equally Coherent Systems", Philosophical Studies 64 (1991), p. 229). 2 Scheffler, "On Justification and Commitment", p. 181. 3 See Sellars, Science, Perception and Reality, p. 356; Quine, Word and Object, pp. 20-21; and Harman, Change in View, Cambridge, p. 32.

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The plan of the chapter is as follows. In the next section, a suggestion by Israel Scheffler is considered. Scheffler's proposal involves essentially the claim that a person is not justified in accepting the members of any coherent set, but only the members of a coherent set which maximizes "initial credibility" for that person, where this notion is defined in terms of confidence. In section 4.2, a suggestion is discussed to the effect that coherence among one's beliefs does not make them justified unless the coherence was produced as an effect of having adopted a certain conservative procedure. Both these suggestions are subsequently dismissed. In section 4.3, finally, I consider an argument by G-ilbert Harman to the effect that coherence is not sufficient for justification: "the coherence criterion" must be combined with a principle of conservatism. The argument is rejected, partly because it is based on an implausible view of coherence. 4.1

MAXIMIZING INITIAL COMMITMENT

Why is coherence held not to be sufficient for justification, and what purpose should an additional condition serve? Nelson Goodman and Israel Scheffler argue that coherence is not sufficient since any belief coheres with some set of statements (or is a member of some coherent set of statements). If coherence would be sufficient, anybody would be justified in believing anything. Goodman concludes that "we need also some means for choosing between equally tight systems that are incompatible with each other".! For this purpose, Goodman introduces the concept of "initial credibility". The choice between equally coherent sets should be made on the basis of the initial credibilities of the members of the sets. The relevant system - Le. the system such that membership of this set implies justification - is the coherent set containing sentences with the highest degree of initial credibility: "These demands constitute a different factor from coherence, the wanted means of choosing between different systems."2 Israel Scheffler elaborates this thought. He explicates the notion of "initial credibility" in terms of "initial commitment". For him, the ini1 Goodman, N., "Sense and Certainty", Philosophical Review 61 (1952), p. 162.

2 Ibid, p. 163.

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tial credibility of a sentence essentially refers to our initial commitment to its acceptance. 1 According to Scheffler, our "initial acceptancecommitments" are of "various intensities", and these might change over time. 2 I will assume that our initial commitment to the acceptance of a sentence p at a time t, and its initial credibility at t, refers to the degree of confidence with which we accept p at t. Scheffler suggests that the acceptance of a sentence p at a certain time is justified if p coheres with "the [coherent] system which maximizes initial credibility at that time".3 In view of the fact that one and the same sentence can be accepted with different degrees of confidence by different people, Scheffler's suggestion could more adequately be stated as follows: A person A is justified in accepting a sentence p at a time t if p belongs to a coherent set of sentences such that it maximizes initial credibility for A at t among alternative coherent sets. 4 What does "maximizes initial credibility" mean? Scheffler claims that "every sentence may trivially be said to have some degree, perhaps zero, or a negative value, of initial credibility" (for a person at a time).5 Let us imagine that the initial credibility of a sentence for A at t may be assigned a numerical value v such that -1 ~ v ~ 1. If the initial credibility of a sentence p for A at t is 0 then A at t neither thinks that p is true nor false. If the initial credibility is 1 then A at t is certain of the truth of p, and if the degree is -1 then A at t is certain that p is false. Each of the sentences of a coherent set S of sentences has a certain initial credibility for A at t. Let us call the sum of these the "total credibility value" of S for A at t. We may say that S maximizes initial credibility for A at t among alternative coherent sets if and only if there is no alternative coherent set S' such that S' has a higher total credibility value for A at t. Scheffler does not specify when a set is coherent. However, he seems to think that consistency is a necessary feature of a coherent set, and 1 "On Justification and Commitment", p. 187. 2 Ibid, pp. 182, 187. 3 Ibid, p. 182.

4 Which are the relevant alternative coherent sets of some set S? Scheffler seems to restrict these to S's "contemporary rivals" (p. 183). 5 Ibid, P 182.

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furthennore that the "derivability" of a sentence "within the system" is sufficient for its coherence with the system.! Anyway, we may assume, I think, that a coherent set does not contain sentences entirely irrelevant to the truth and falsity of the rest. Let us say that a set S is a i-set for A at t if and only if S is coherent and maximizes initial credibility for A at t among alternative coherent sets. Notice that a set containing sentences not held true, and even held false by A at t may be a J-set for A at t. This might seem to imply that A may be justified in accepting sentences she does not in fact accept, or holds to be false. Scheffler wishes to avoid such an implication by distinguishing between "groundedness" and justification.2 A necessary condition for A to be justified in accepting a sentence p at t is that p belongs to a J-set for A at t. However, if she does not in fact accept pat t, p is merely "grounded" for her at t. The predicate "justified" is reserved for sentences which are actually accepted by A at t. In what sense is Scheffler's position a fonn of conservatism? Perhaps in the sense that if A would attempt to revise her actual system of beliefs so as to make it identical to a J-set, she would achieve this aim by following a "law of least action" in trying to make her system coherent; i.e. roughly by holding on to those beliefs in which she is most confident and rejecting those in which she is less confident. Is Schefflers position reasonable? Is it reasonable to claim that A is justified in accepting a sentence p at t if and only if A accepts p, and p belongs to a J-set for A at t? And should we perhaps argue that A is in a state of reflective equilibrium at t if and only if all the moral sentences belonging to some J-set for A at t are accepted by A? I think not. Scheffler's position has certain undesirable consequences. It implies that the mere fact that A has beliefs entails that some are justified for her, no matter their content or whether A has any evidence in favour of them (i.e. whether they obtain support from the rest of her beliefs). The reason is that, for every person A and every time t, such that A holds some beliefs at t, there is a J-set which contains sentences actually held true by A at t. It does not matter which beliefs she holds, or how they are related (whether some support others, whether they are contradictory, etc). 1 See e.g. ibid, p. 181. 2 Ibid, p. 185.

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For instance, suppose that A's actual system is not particularly coherent. In this case, it seems conceivable that there is a sentence p, accepted by A, which belongs to a J-set for A at t in virtue of cohering with a set of sentences ql, ..., qn such that ql, ..., qn belong to a J:.set for A at t, even if A does not in fact accept ql, ..., qn. Thus, on Scheffler's view, A is justified in accepting p at t even if she lacks evidence in favour of p. This implication is unreasonable. Intuitively, in order to be justified in holding a belief, we must have some evidence in favour of it. This holds at least for some beliefs (about quantum mechanics, or life on other planets, etc). Scheffler's position cannot really account for this intuition. Given the condition that a J-set for A at t maximizes initial credibility for A at t, the underdetermination is less radical. However, it seems possible that there are more than one J-set for A at t. 1 In other words: there might be two (or more) equally coherent sets of sentences, Sand S', such that no alternative coherent set has a higher total credibility value for A at t. Suppose that these systems are incompatible; S contains p, while S' contains sentences jointly implying that p is false. 2 If (which seems unlikely, but not impossible) A at tactually accepts both p and the sentences of S' implying that p is false, Scheffler's position seems to imply that A at t is justified in holding inconsistent beliefs. This is unreasonable - a desideratum of a theory of justification is surely that it must not yield that each of a set of inconsistent beliefs is justified for the same person at the same time. 3 Contrary to this, Richard Foley has argued, on the basis of the lottery paradox, that a person at one and the same time can be justified in accepting each of the members of an inconsistent set of statements. Consider a fair lottery with one billion tickets, and suppose we know that there is only one winner. According to Foley, we are justified in 1 lowe this objection to Lars Bergstrom. 2 This assumption might seem to conflict with the conclusions reached in section 5.3. However, notice that it conflicts only if the level of coherence required by Sheffler in the J-set of a person is very high (and if the concept of coherence employed by Scheffler is the same as that relevant there). If so, the likelihood of A being justified, on Scheffler's view, in holding beliefs for which she has no evidence is even higher (since in such a case, a J-set for A at t may differ significantly from the set of her actual beliefs). 3 See e.g. Cornman, 1., Scepticism, Justification, and Explanation, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980, p. 137.

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believing of each of the tickets that it will not win, since the probability, for each of the tickets, that it shall win is so small. And this is so in spite of the fact that the set of all these beliefs, together with the assumed knowledge that there is a winning ticket, is inconsistent. 1 I do not here wish to contest Foley's claim. I will merely point out that, in a lottery case such as this, we have for each of the beliefs strong reasons (evidence, if you wish) for holding it true. Scheffler's position, on the other hand, does not involve any requirement to the effect that a person must have reasons in order to be justified in believing each member of an inconsistent set of claims. She may be justified in holding them regardless of whether she has any reasons whatsoever in favour of them. It is sufficient that A at t holds inconsistent beliefs, and that there are two J-sets for A at t including these beliefs. 4.2

CONSERVATISM AND RELIABILISM

Goodman and Scheffler hold that coherence is not sufficient for justification since any belief is a member of some coherent set. This suggests that coherence with any set of statements cannot be sufficient for justification. However, in chapter 2, I suggested a different way of specifying the relevant set: the justification of a moral belief m for a person A is determined by m's coherence with the rest of the beliefs actually held by A.2 This position is in itself a form of conservatism, and provides a response to Goodman's and Scheffler's worry: on this view, a person is not justified in believing any claim, even granted that there may be incompatible, but equally coherent sets of beliefs. 3 Is such a position reasonable? Suppose that A's moral beliefs are to some significant extent justified according to the idea of reflective 1 Foley, R., The Theory of Epistemic Rationality, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987, p. 99. Foley uses the term "epistemically rational" rather than "justified", but he seems to mean essentially the same. 2 This way of specifying the relevant coherent set is common among coherentists. See e.g. Firth, "Coherence, Certainty, and Epistemic Priority", p. 555; and Blanshard, The Nature of Thought, p. 272, where he takes the relevant form of coherence to be coherence with one's "system of present knowledge". 3 However, this position is compatible with the view that two persons might be justified in holding radically different and mutually incompatible beliefs as an effect of there being radically different but internally coherent sets of beliefs. The plausbility and significance of this claim will be considered at length in chapter 5.

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equilibrium. The assumption that there may be incompatible, but equally coherent sets of beliefs suggests that A could have achieved coherence in other ways than she in fact did, ending up with some widely different set of beliefs as justified. Suppose A started with an incoherent system of beliefs. In order to achieve coherence, A had to make several revisions and changes in her initial system. She had to drop or reject some of her beliefs, modify others, and introduce new ones - let us call such measures, "revisions" or "adjustment decisions". The fact that there is no unique coherent set of beliefs implies, possibly, that there are many alternative, and with respect to the goal of attaining coherence, equally good ways of generating coherence in an incoherent set. Daniel Little claims that "[g]iven an incoherence within a theoretical system, there will generally be alternative and non-equivalent ways of resolving the contradiction", so "the coherence epistemology offers no basis for choosing between them".! D. W. Haslett makes a similar point: Take, for example, the situation where we can only achieve a 'fit' between our considered moral judgement J and background theory T either by (A) discarding J for the sake of allowing T to remain intact, or (B) modifying T for the sake of retaining J. [...] Notice that, since (A) and (B) will both, by hypothesis, remove the contradiction, and thus achieve coherence, coherence considerations alone are not enough to enable us to decide between (A) and (B).2

Thus, in trying to achieve coherence, many alternative adjustment decisions seem open to us, and each of these alternative adjustment decisions would result in a set of beliefs different from, or even incompatible with, those of the alternative adjustment decisions. In other words: given only A's intention to achieve coherence among her beliefs, A might just as well have ended up with any of the many coherent sets of beliefs. The fact that A ends up with the beliefs she in fact does is, from the point of view of the method itself, an accidental fact. It must be explained partly by (in this context) arbitrary factors, such as what psychological influences A is exposed to during the process. And if the fact that A '8 beliefs cohere well with her system is

1 "Reflective Equilibrium and Justification", p. 383. 2 "What Is Wrong With Reflective Equilibria?", p. 31Q.

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sufficient for justification, the fact that A is justified in holding these beliefs rather than those of another set is also in a way accidental. This may seem objectionable. It might suggest that it is not sufficient in order for one's moral beliefs to be justified to any extent that they cohere well with one's system. How should the idea of reflective equilibrium be modified? Possibly by requiring that the coherence of A's beliefs must have been achieved in a certain way, in order for A to be justified in holding then1. 4.2.1 The relevance of the procedure of reflective equilibrium Consider again the procedure of reflective equilibrium (see section 2.4). An essential element of this procedure is often held to be a kind of conservatism. The initial moral beliefs of a person, and her varying degrees of confidence in these beliefs, is usually held to playa decisive role. The adjustment decisions necessary for a person to achieve coherence - resolving inconsistencies, introducing principles, new concepts, different kinds of background theories, etc - should be made on the basis of her confidence in the beliefs involved. Let us imagine a simple case: if A in a given situation discovers an inconsistency among her beliefs, then, other things being equal, she should reject that or those of the conflicting beliefs in which she is less confident. In his description of the procedure of reflective equilibrium, Michael DePaul writes: When the person uncovers a conflict between two of his beliefs he will revise the one to which he is less strongly committed. [...] More generally, when a person discovers that some number of his moral and philosophical beliefs are in conflict, he will select from the possible revisions which would yield a coherent system the one that maximizes his degree of initial commitment. 1

The term "initial" commitment is not so well chosen in this context. It suggests that A's initial beliefs and degrees of confidence in some way should determine her adjustment decisions. This is unreasonable since her beliefs and degrees of commitment are likely to change during the procedure, which is now straightforwardly conceived as a historical process. The present suggestion should instead be taken to imply that A 1 DePaul, "Two Conceptions of Coherence Methods in Ethics", p. 465.

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should let her adjustment decisions be determined by the degrees of confidence she has at the particular time when the decision is being made, regardless of if they are identical with those she started out with. In section 2.4, I argued that the state of reflective equilibrium should be defined so that the procedure of reflective equilibrium is seen to be a rational way of approaching the state. However, having undergone some such procedure was conceived as a necessary condition neither for being in the state of reflective equilibrium, nor for one's moral beliefs to be justified. In view of the reasoning above, maybe this position should be modified. Here is a suggestion: a necessary condition for someone to be in the state of reflective equilibrium, and to hold justified moral beliefs, is that she has undergone the procedure of reflective equilibrium. In following this procedure, the person is forced to take the appropriate reflective stance towards her considered judgments and the principles. This is probably a very common interpretation of the idea of reflective equilibrium. Commentators tend to claim that it is the fact that a person has undergone such a process that partly explains why the resulting beliefs are justified. For instance, Michael DePaul sees this as a reason for refonning the conception of the procedure in a less conservative direction. He argues that, in order for the procefure of reflective equilibrium to confer justification on the resulting beliefs, it must not only be taken to consist in bringing order among the considered judgments we actually happen to have. Instead, DePauls conception of the procedure directs us to let our moral faculty operate in conditions that are favourable to its functioning, conditions that will allow this faculty the richest inputs, ample opportunity to uncover and correct incoherencies in its output, the chance to interact with other judgemental faculties, and perhaps most importantly, the opportunity to mature. 1

This may, according to DePaul, result in considerably more radical revisions than the traditional conception allows for (it could result in veritable moral "conversions", for example as a result of understanding the whole Marxist perspective). The beliefs we hold in reflective equilibrium might be entirely different from those we started out with. 1 Ibid, p. 472.

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4.2.2 Objections I think the suggestion stated in section 4.2.1 should be rejected. I believe that it is irrelevant to the issue of whether the beliefs of a person A are justified how they were actually formed. It is irrelevant whether they are the result of a process of producing coherence so as to maximize initial commitment, whether A made herself believe them just for the sake of coherence, etc. What completely determines the extent to which our beliefs are epistemically justified is the extent to .which we have evidence for and/or against them. If a belief coheres well with our system, we have evidence for it (Le. the evidence is provided by other beliefs). Of course, there is something to the intuition underlying the claim that the circumstances under which our beliefs are formed are relevant to their justification - we do, after all, evaluate beliefs on the basis of such considerations. This may be accounted for in the following way: what A believes about the causal history of her beliefs may be relevant to their justification. If she believes that some of her beliefs are caused by arbitrary and irrational factors, this might indicate that they are not justified for her, since it suggests that they do not cohere significantly with her system. However, notice that, on this view, what is relevant to the justification of these beliefs is not whether they actually are unreliably formed, but only whether A believes so, and whether that belief coheres with her system. Let us try to imagine a counterexample against the view that the circumstances under which a belief are formed are irrelevant to its justification. The fact that a belief is reliably formed is hardly sufficient for justification. For instance, consider a case where A holds a belief which is in fact reliably formed, while A with good reason believes that this is not so. In this case, it seems implausible to argue that the fact that the belief is reliably fonned makes it justified for A. But might not reliability still have some relevance? Consider two persons, A and B, disagreeing about the truth of some proposition p A believes that p is true, while B denies p. Suppose that their opposed beliefs cohere equally well with their systems, but while A's belief is reliably formed, B's belief is not. l Does this indicate that A's belief is 1 The example was suggested in conversation by Lars Bergstrom.

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more justified than B's belief? I think not. A's belief is equally justified as B's belief. However, this is compatible with the claim that we, from our perspective, knowing that the belief of A is reliably fonned while the belief of B is not, should believe in p rather than not-p. The thesis that justified beliefs must in some sense be reliably formed is known as "reliabilism".l The debate between reliabilists and their critics is difficult to assess ..Critics usually appeal to different intemalist intuitions (e.g. that a person cannot be justified in believing something without believing that she is justified), but I agree with Jonathan Dancy in thinking that there seems to be no decisive argument on either side. 2 I have merely suggested that the theory of reflective equilibrium can account for the intuitions underlying the reliabilist claims discussed in this section. Anyway, the defence of the theory of reflective equilibrium provided in this essay will not involve a refutation of reliabilism. It is more or less restricted to defending the claims (1) and (2) stated in section 1.2. Before leaving the issues of this section, I wish to make two parenthetical remarks. First, even if we grant that the coherence of one's beliefs must have been produced in a certain way in order for them to be justified, why assume that the relevant adjustment decisions should be made on the basis of our confidence in the involved beliefs, as suggested in section 4.2.1? Of course, if we discover an inconsistency among our beliefs, we are likely to hold on to those among them in which we are most confident. Our tendency to do so is partly constitutive of what it means to be more confident in one belief than in another. But is this strategy always reasonable? An affirmative answer seems based on some assumption to the effect that firmly held beliefs generally are more reliable than less firmly held beliefs. This assumption is seen to be dubious once we recognize that, whether the fact that one of our beliefs is firmly held indicates that it is true, depends on why it is firmly held. The fact that it is firmly held may be caused by distinct sensory impressions as well as by the preachings of a Jesuit pater. If the best explanation, relative to the rest of our beliefs,

1 For a well-known proponent, see Goldman, A.I., "What Is Justified Beliefl", in Pappas, G. (ed.), Justification and Knowledge, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979, pp. 1-23. 2 Dancy, Introduction to Epistemology, p. 136.

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of why we are very confident in some belief implies that it is true, this might be a reason for holding on to it in case of conflict with other beliefs. However, if the best explanation implies that it is unreliably formed, this might be a reason for rejecting it. Second, the scope of a principle of conservatism is anyway likely to be very limited. The decision of how to resolve an inconsistency, etc, can often be made with appeal to coherence considerations. Suppose that an inconsistency among our beliefs would be resolved either by rejecting a previously belief p or another such belief q. Aiming at increasing the coherence of our system might still prompt us to prefer one revision to another - e.g. because p might cohere better with our system than q. Suppose such considerations suggest that we should reject q. The rejection of p could perhaps result in an equal level of coherence if combined with further compensating revisions of our system. However, these revisions would have to be more extensive, the better p coheres with our system. At some level of coherence, it would demand revisions so radical that they are probably beyond volountary control. The limitation of the scope of a principle of conservatism is also shown by the fact that, the better p coheres with our system, the less likely is it that there is any revision such that the rejection of p would result in a more or even equally coherent system. These - at first glance astonishing - claims are defended in section 5.3. 4.3

COHERENCE AND PARMENIDEAN THOUGHfS

As I have described the idea so far, there is a lexical ordering between coherence and conservatism. If a revision would lead to more coherence than every alternative revision, it should be preferred, even if there are more conservative revisions that would result in less coherence. This is plausible as long as coherence is solely taken to be a matter of logical consistency. It is not equally obvious if we also consider other elements of coherence, such as the number and strength of the evidential relations obtaining among the members of a system. It might be argued that we sometimes should prefer a revision that would result in a less coherent system to one that would result in a higher level of coherence but implies extensive changes in our initial world view.

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Gilbert Harman seems to think that the whole point of introducing a principle of conservatism is that such considerations should be weighed against coherence considerations, and eventually outweigh them (except, presumably, for consistency): It is important that coherence competes with conservatism. It is as if there were two aims or tendencies of reasoned revision, to maximize coherence and to minimize change. Both tendencies are important. Without conservatism a person would be led to reduce his or her beliefs to the single Parmenidean thought that all is one. 1

It may be doubted if the volountarism with respect to belief, implicitly assumed by Harman's argument, is really plausible. We are constantly bombarded with sensory and memory impressions that generate beliefs much beyond our control. It may also be doubted whether it is possible to hold a single belief. On a plausible view of the concept of belief, no single belief can correctly be attributed to a person unless a large number· of other beliefs may also be attributed to her. The reason is that, otherwise, we would have no reason to think that she holds that particular belief rather than some other belief. For instance, attributing to a person the belief that the earth is round would be unreasonable unless assumed that she believes many other things about the earth and roundness. Thus, some degree of complexity in one's system of beliefs is essential in order to have beliefs in the first place. 2 Moreover, I think that Harman's argument is based on a simplistic view of coherence. A system is not plausibly said to be coherent merely insofar as it is logically consistent, in which case the argument might have been valid. Consider the views stated in chapter 2. These views suggest that, if the system of a person is highly coherent, the system contains several separate arguments in support of many of its members. This indicates that a highly coherent set must be rather complex - it must contain a relatively large number of beliefs. The aim of maximizing coherence does not, as Hannan suggests, direct us to diminish the system as much as possible. On the contrary, there is a tendency to expand the system, so that it becomes sufficiently complex - Le. so

1 Harman, Change in View, p. 32. 2 For further discussion along this line of thought, see section 5.3.

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that there is a wide range of considerations in support of many of its members. At the same time, the idea that the degree of coherence depends on how well its members are supported by the system is a constraint on the inclusion of new members, since \ve also have to consider how well they in tum are supported by the system. Therefore, the double aim sought for by Harman - both excluding beliefs not properly grounded, and preserving (or increasing) the complexity of one's system is already inherent in the criterion of coherence. There is simply no need for a principle of conservatism. Accordingly, no such principle need be incorporated in the theory of reflective equilibrium.

CHAPTER 5

REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM AND TRUTH

An objection often raised against the idea of reflective equilibrium is that, unless some of our considered moral beliefs are independently justified, nothing much is gained by removing internal conflicts and bringing order among them. The result of such a procedure maximizing coherence among one's moral beliefs - might amount to nothing but a set of false prejudices, though of course neatly organized, at least if we reject a constructivist or coherentist account of truth in moral contexts. This objection - it will henceforth be referred to as "the truth objection" - is very popular among the critics of the idea of reflective equilibrium. In fact, I can think of none of the objections commonly raised against the idea of reflective equilibrium that cannot in one way or another be reduced to it. For instance, this seems true of the objections that the idea of reflective equilibrium is essentially conservative and involves circular reasoning. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the truth objection. I will argue that it fails to show that the idea of reflective equilibrium is unreasonable as an account of epistemic justification for moral beliefs, even if constructivist accounts of truth in moral contexts are rejected. The truth objection is an instance of a more general argunlent against coherence theories of epistemic justification. In the discussion of this chapter, it will mostly be seen in this general context. 1

1 When discussed in the general context, the objection is sometimes called "the isolation argument". Cf. Pollock, J., Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1986, p. 76.

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95

THE TRUTH OBJECTION

Even if the truth objection can be extracted from the writings of most of the critics of the idea of reflective equilibrium,1 there are few clear statements of it. One relatively clear statement is provided by Richard Brandt. Brandt's statement of the objection essentially involves the claim that it could happen that merely maximizing coherence among one's considered moral beliefs "leads away from the truth rather than towards it" (see section 1.3.3). Therefore, in Brandt's opinion, we should require that "some of the beliefs [involved in the procedure of reflective equilibrium] are initially credible - and not merely initially believed - for some reason other than their coherence".2 Statements of the general argument against coherentism are more frequent. In a recent paper, Mark Timmons asks rhetorically: "why suppose that maximizing coherence will lead to beliefs or judgments that correspond to an inquiry-independent reality?"3 And Peter Horwich writes: Consider a total system of beliefs, each element of which may be justified in terms of other components of the system [...] Now it seems perfectly possible for such a system -

let us call it a 'coherent' system -

to be entirely false. Indeed there

appears to be no reason to think that 'coherence' provides even an indication of truth.4

The general strategy is to point out that a set of falsehoods may be just as coherent as a set of truths. Therefore, there is no reason to think that maximizing coherence among our beliefs will generally take us closer to the truth, or increase the chances of attaining it, etc - at least unless

1 See e.g Bayles, M., "Intuitions in Ethics", Dialogue 23 (1984), pp. 444-452; Copp, "Considered Moral Judgments and Moral Justification: Conservatism in Moral Theory"; Dworkin, R., "The Original Position", in Daniels (ed.), Reading Rawls, pp. 27-37; Hare, "Rawls' Theory of Justice"; Little, "Reflective Equilibrium and Justification"; Lyons, "Nature and Soundness of the Contract and Coherence Arguments"; and Sencerz, S., "Moral Intuitions and Justification in Ethics", Philosophical Studies 50 (1986), pp. 77-95. 2 A Theory of the Good and the Right, p. 20 for both quotations. 3 Timmons, "On the Epistemic Status of Considered Moral Judgments", p. 10l. 4 Horwich, P., "Review of Michael Williams, Groundless Belief', Nous 16

(1982) p. 315.

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some of our beliefs are independently justified, or unless we opt for a coherentist view of truth. To use another metaphor from the debate, it might seem that coherentism in a sense "cuts justification off from the world". 1 The truth objection rests on a view or intuition to the effect that there is a certain connection between epistemic justification and truth. This connection is expressed in many ways: epistemic justification should "lead towards"2 or "grow towards"3 or provide an "indication" of truth. 4 Epistemically justified beliefs must be highly likely to be true,5 and holding epistemically justified beliefs must increase one's chances of attaining truth, and be conducive to the aim of holding true and avoiding false beliefs. 6 Coherentism is held to be unreasonable since there is no reason to think that maximzing coherence among one's beliefs makes them highly likely, or significantly increases one's chances of holding true beliefs, etc. For instance, Horwich argues: [W]hy do we want justified beliefs? A natural answer is that we want true beliefs, and think that the chance of having them is increased by the presence of justification. But although that thought is eminently plausible if justified systems must be well founded, it seems illegitimate if mere coherence is sufficient [for justification].7

And Laurence Bonjour, who has recently developed a defence against the truth objection, thinks that such a defence involves providing a "reason to think that the beliefs which would be justified according to a

1 Pollock, 1., Knowledge and Justification, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974, p. 27. 2 See Brandt, A Theory of the Good and the Right, p. 20. 3 See Dancy, Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology, p. 138. 4 See Goldman A.H., Moral Knowledge, New York: Routledge, 1990, p. 184. Similar comments can be found in most books touching on the relationship between epistemic justification and truth. For instance, Robert Audi insists that "it seems to be at least partly constitutive of justification that, in some way, it counts toward truth". Audi, R., "Justification, Truth, and Reliability", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (1988), p. 3. 5 See e.g Bonjour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, p.·93. 6 See e.g Alston, "Concepts of Epistemic Justification", p. 59. 7 Horwich, "Review of Michael Williams, Groundless Belief', p. 315.

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coherence theory [...] are thereby likely, to some reasonable degree, to be true".1 Sometimes the thesis that there is no reason to think that maximizing coherence will take us closer to the truth is not seen to be in need of supporting arguments. However, intimately related to this thesis is the claim that, no matter how coherence is characterized (as long as coherence is merely a matter of certain internal relations among beliefs), there may always be mutually incompatible but equally coherent systems of beliefs. In a recent book, Alan Goldman claims: Coherence among empirical beliefs, whose purpose is to represent independent reality, is not sufficient to indicate truth. The possibility of incompatible sets of equally coherent beliefs demonstrates that insufficiency, since only one such set can contain only true beliefs.2

Moritz Schlick reasons similarly. He claims that the coherence theory is unreasonable: "it fails altogether to give an unambiguous criterion of truth, for by means of it, I can arrive at any number of consistent systems of statements which are incompatible with one another".3 In response to the truth objection, some coherentists have adopted a constructivist or coherentist view on truth. They seem to reason as follows: if truth essentially is a matter of coherence among beliefs or statements - Le. if a statement is true insofar as it is a member of some coherent set of statements - then, and only then, may coherence among one's beliefs plausibly be held to indicate truth. For instance, Jonathan Dancy claims that the coherence theory of epistemic justification should be combined with a coherence theory of truth, since otherwise it cannot explain that "as justification grows, it 1 Bonjour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, p. 89. 2 Goldman, A.H., Moral Knowledge, p. 184. See also Goldman, A.H., "Bonjour's Coherentism", in Bender, J. (ed.), The Current State of the Coherence Theory, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989, p. 125. 3 Schlick, M., "The Foundation of Knowledge", in Ayer, A. (ed.), Logical Positivism, New York: Free Press, p. 216. In fact, the litterature is crowded with statements of this objection. I cannot here quote them all. However, for some prominent examples, see Lewis, C.I., "The Given Element in Empirical Knowledge", Philosophical Review 61 (1952), pp. 168-175; Pollock, Knowledge and Justification, esp. chaps. 1-2; and Sosa, E., "The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge", in French, Uehling, and Wettstein (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980, pp. 325.

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grows towards truth".1 And the classical idealist Brand Blanshard famously argues that if one holds that the nature of truth should be explained in terms of something quite different than coherence - say, correspondence to facts - one cannot plausibly hold that coherence is the test of truth: It is [...] in1possible to argue from a high degree of coherence [...] to its [the system's] correspondence in the same degree with anything outside. [...] If you place the nature of truth in one sort of character and its test in something different, you are pretty certain, sooner or later, to find the two falling apart. In the end, the only test of truth that is not misleading is the special nature or character that is itself constitutive of truth.2

However, other coherentists hold that it is not necessary to adopt a coherence or constructivist account of truth. They combine a coherentist view on epistemic justification with a objectivist or realist view on truth. 3 The purpose of this chapter is to explore the possibility of providing a response to the truth objection which is not essentially based on adopting a coherence view of truth. The next section is devoted to a discussion of one of the essential premises of the objection - the premise that epistemic justification should "lead towards" the truth, or provide an "indication" of truth, or "increase one's chances" of holding true beliefs, etc. It is pointed out that this premise may be interpreted in different ways, and furthermore that it is unclear if there is an interpretation such that it generates a problem for coherentism and the idea of reflective equilibrium. The claim that there may be radically different and mutually incompatible but equally coherent sets of beliefs is discussed, and subsequently dismissed, in section 5.3. The chapter is summarized in section 5.4. 1 Dancy, Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology, p. 138. 2 Blanshard, The Nature of Thought, p. 268. See also Goldman, A.H., Moral Knowledge, esp. chapters 4 & 5, for an application of this strategy specifically to morality. 3 See e.g. Bonjour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (esp. p. 89); Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics; Ewing, Idealism (esp. p. 250); and Rescher, The Coherence Theory of Truth, (chap. 1). I will not try to explain what a realist account of truth amounts to. It in1plies that the truth of a statement in an interesting sense is independent of whether we accept it or are justified in accepting it.

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5.2

99

EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION AND TRUTH

The connection between epistemic justification and truth, assumed by the truth objection, generates a condition of adequacy for theories of epistemic justification. Let us refer to this condition as "condition C". How condition C should be formulated depends on what we take the connection between epistemic justification and truth to amount to. Metaphors to the effect that epistemic justification should "lead" or '''grow'' towards truth, are of doubtful value, and in assessing the truth objection it is important to see if they can be assigned a more precise meaning. Adherents of the truth objection do not usually take condition C to imply that the beliefs picked out as justified by a theory of epistemic justification must be true in order for the theory to be reasonable epistemic justification is not taken to guarantee truth. 1 For instance, it is usually held that two persons may be justified in holding mutually incompatible beliefs. Thus, it seems that a theory of epistemic justification can be reasonable even if some of the beliefs picked out as justified by the theory are false, and this is perhaps fortunate for the prospects of defending coherentism. 5.2.1 A straightforward suggestion Consider the following suggestion as to how condition C should be construed: a theory T of epistemic justification satisfies condition C if and only if most beliefs that are highly justified according to Tare true, and if the beliefs it assigns a higher degree of justification are true more often than the beliefs it assigns a lower degree of justification. Could this suggestion help us in adjudicating between competing theories of epistemic justification? One problem is that it is doubtful whether the traditional and competing theories of epistemic justification pick out different actual beliefs as justified. The difference between the traditional theories seems rather to concern their explanations of why precisely those beliefs are justified.

1 See e.g. Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, p. 126; and Timmons, "On the Epistemic Status of Considered Moral Judgments", p. 101.

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Another problem is this: it is a matter of fact whether or not the beliefs picked out as justified by T are generally true, but in order for condition C to help us in adjudicating between competing theories, we need some way of finding out if this is the case. However, what is true or false is not transparent. In trying to discover whether the beliefs picked out as justified by T are generally true, we must consult our own beliefs, and they may of course be false. Suppose we check the beliefs picked out by T against our own beliefs and find that they match pretty well. Are we thus justified in concluding that T satisfies condition C? Not unless our own beliefs are (at least) justified, it might be argued. But how do we ascertain whether our beliefs are justified? Presumably by adopting some theory of epistemic justification. Either we employ T itself (or some theory picking out precisely the same beliefs as justified as T), or some other theory. In the first case, it seems trivial that T is shown to satisfy condition C, and in the second case it seems trivial that T is shown not to satisfy condition C. But we have in neither case provided an independent reason for thinking that T does (or does not) satisfy condition C.1 This should make us skeptical about the fruitfulness of the suggestion under consideration in this context. 5.2.2 A coherentist suggestion The truth objection is sometimes stated in the following way: coherentism is unreasonable since there is no reason to think that mere coherence provides an indication of truth. This suggests the following construal of condition C: a theory T of epistemic justification satisfies condition C if and only if there is reason to think that most of the beliefs that are highly justified according to T are true, and if there is more reason to think that the beliefs it assigns a higher degree of justification are true than the beliefs it assigns a lower degree. However, in accordance with one usage of the term "reason", what one person has reason to believe might differ from what another has reason to believe, depending on differences in evidence and epistemic perspective, etc. Therefore, we may ask: must everyone have reason to 1 This problem is related to an ancient argument sometimes referred to as "the Diallelus argument". For a statement of this argument, see Rescher, The Coherence Theory of Truth, p. 12-13.

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think that the beliefs picked out as highly justified by T are true in order for T to be reasonable? And which beliefs picked out as justified by T must we have reason to think are true - every belief which is justified for at least somebody, or just a limited number? Must I have reason to think that the beliefs of another person that are justified according to T are true? Depending on how such questions are answered, condition C will be interpreted in different ways. I will not consider every possible interpretation but will simply make a suggestion which seems initially reasonable: T satisfies condition C if each person has reason to think that those of her beliefs that are highly justified according to T are true, and if she has 1110re reason to think that those of her beliefs that T assigns a higher degree of justification are true than those T assigns a lower degree of justification. Although this suggestion might seem a bit empty (and possibly biased in favour of coherentism), in a sense, I think it captures the intuition underlying the truth objection. The connection between epistemic justification and truth is sometimes held to consist in the following fact: holding epistemically justified beliefs is rational in relation to the cognitive aim of holding true and avoiding false beliefs. 1 If a person has reason to think that those of her beliefs that are justified according to a theory of epistemic justification are true, it is surely rational for her to hold the beliefs picked out by the theory as justified for her, given her cognitive aim. If condition C is interpreted in accordance with this suggestion, a coherentist can respond to the truth objection. The fact that the beliefs of a person A cohere well with her system implies that the members of the system are related so that each member is evidentially supported by the rest. The more coherent her system is, the better each member is supported by the rest. Thus, in such a case, for each of her beliefs, she holds other beliefs which give her reason to think that it is true. Whether the fact that someone else's beliefs are justified according to coherentism provides a reason for A to think that the beliefs of that person are true depends partly on what else A believes about that person. It is anyway irrelevant to the reasonableness of coherentism (and the idea of reflective equilibrium). 1 See e.g. Alston, "Concepts of Epistemic Justification", p. 59.

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A critic might object to this coherentist response in the following way. The mere fact that the beliefs of a person have certain internal relations - whatever these more precisely are - does not provide A with a reason to think that they are true. In order for A to have reason to think that her beliefs are true, they must either be independently justified or directly or indirectly supported by independently justified beliefs. However, such an objection begs the question. One of the issues between coherentism and its competitors is precisely whether there are, or need to be, such independently justified beliefs. On the other hand, in a sense, the coherentist response suggested above also begs the question, since it simply assumes that a person has reason to think. that a belief is true if it coheres with the rest of her beliefs. So, under the present interpretation as well, condition C seems to provide little help in adjudicating between competing theories of epistemic justification. 5.2.3 Diagnosis This is a depressing, but perhaps not surprising conclusion. It would be slightly naive, I think, to suppose that the intuition that there is a connection between epistemic justification and truth could provide a neutral ground for adjudicating between coherentism and e.g. foundationalism. A difference between coherentism and its competitors might very well be that they conceive this connection differently. This is indeed indicated in that the connection is usually characterized in terms like "highly likely", "reason to believe", "increase the chances of', etc. Such expressions are intimately related to the notion of epistemic justification. Consequently, condition C could hardly be neutrally characterized. The possibility of this line of reasoning is suggested by Horwich. He writes: The statement that we have no reason to think that coherence indicates truth is correct only relative to a foundationalist analysis of what may qualify as a reason. From the perspective of the coherence account of justification it is quite trivial that we do have reason; we are justified in supposing that coherence indicates truth. 1

1 Horwich, "Review of Michael Williams, Groundless Belief', p. 315. Horwich believes that such an argument "relies upon the denial of metaphysical realism" (p.

315).

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103

COHERENCE AND DISAGREEMENT

Intimately related to the truth objection is the claim that there may be mutually incompatible but equally coherent systems of beliefs. This need not be objectionable if the connection between epistemic justification and truth is interpreted in accordance with the suggestion discussed in section 5.2.2. The fact that a theory of epistemic justification implies that different persons may be justified in holding mutually incompatible beliefs is, perhaps, compatible with the fact that each person has reason to think that those of her beliefs that are justified according to the theory are true. However, if the connection is not interpreted in accordance with this suggestion, the claim n1ight still be relevant. The fact that radically different systems of beliefs may be justified according to coherentism, might seem to indicate that coherentism does not satisfy condition C in an interesting sense, since, it might be held, not all those beliefs can be highly likely to be true. In the present section, I shall argue that the claim that there may be incompatible though equally coherent systems of beliefs is implausible. 1 5.3.1 Two theses Notice that the mere fact that a theory of epistemic justification implies that different or even mutually incompatible beliefs could be justified (for different persons) does not disqualify it - this could reasonably be explained by differences in evidence, epistemic perspective, etc. The problem with coherentism is rather that it implies that radically different and incompatible sets of beliefs may be justified. It is argued that, no matter to what extent a person is justified in holding a belief according to coherentism, there may always be another person who is equally justified in holding the negation of that belief. I find this claim implausible. Given certain initially plausible assumptions about coherence and belief, it is not the case that widely different and incompatible sets of beliefs could be justified according to

1 The discussion in this section draws heavily on the contents of my "Coherence and Disagreement", Philosophical Studies 65 (1992), pp. 305-317. The material is reprinted here by permission of Kluwer Academic Publishers. I thank Carl Ginet and Joseph Moore for helpful comments on preliminary drafts of the paper.

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coherentism (in the relevant sense of "could"), at least not to an extent that would be objectionable. This will be shown in the course of establishing two somewhat different claims. Consider a person, A, who believes p. The claims are: Cl. The better p coheres with A's system, the less likely is it that there is another person, B, such that not-p coheres equally well with B's system. C2. The better p coheres with A's system, the less likely is it that there is another person who believes not-p. Cl and C2 are obviously compatible with the possibility of two persons holding radically different and incompatible beliefs, as well as with the possibility of their beliefs being justified according to coherentism. However, it will be seen that the arguments developed in support of Cl and C2 imply that this is indeed impossible at some point. The reason why no such claim is explicitly stated is that I find it extremely difficult to be precise as to how wellp must cohere with A's system in order for it to be impossible for not-p to cohere equally well with B's system, etc. Anyway, establishing Cl and C2 is sufficient for discrediting the significance of the argument. The plan of the rest of section 5.3 is as follows. In section 5.3.2, I make some comments about coherence. In section 5.3.3, three closely related meaning-theoretical theses are presented. These views are defended by W.V. Quine and Donald Davidson, among others, and will tum out to be essential for the arguments subsequently developed in support of Cl and C2. The arguments are stated in section 5.3.4. 5.3.2 Two assumptions about coherence To fully understand Cl and C2, we need to spell out more clearly the meanings of the phrases: "the better p coheres with A's system", and "p coheres equally well with A's system as not-p with B's system". Although an account of coherence was sketched in chapter 2, no specific account will be presupposed in this context. This is not necessary for the argument, since we may seriously consider the plausibility of Cl and C2 even before a precise meaning can be assigned to the phrases mentioned above. Only two, intuitively reasonable, assumptions

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about coherence are employed in the arguments for C1 and C2. We might say, then, that Cl and C2 can be shown to hold at least for theories of coherence implying these assumptions (provided that the arguments are sound). Or alternatively, that a desideratum for theories of coherence is that they do imply the assumptions (this desideratum is satisfied, I think, by the account developed in chapter 2). Consider two persons, A and B, and suppose that A believes p. The assumptions are: AI. The better p coheres with A's system, the worse not-p would cohere with A's system if A would believe not-p instead of p and otherwise hold the same beliefs. A2. The better p coheres with A's system, the greater must the difference be between A's and B's systems in order for not-p to cohere equally well with B's system. What is meant by saying that the systems of two persons "differ"? The systems of A and B "differ" in the relevant sense if there is a belief held by A with a certain propositional content and there is no belief held by B with the same propositional content, or conversely. The "difference" between the systems of A and B is a matter of degree. It depends on the extent to which A and B hold beliefs with the same propositional contents (i.e. to what extent they hold the "same" beliefs). Whether there are beliefs of A's system that outright contradict the beliefs of B's system might also be thought to be relevant to the magnitude of the difference between their systems, but this will be disregarded in the present context. 5.3.3 Meaning, holism and charity The arguments that will be set forward in the sequel depend on some intimately related and, in some camps at least, controversial theses about meaning and interpretation. I will not offer an elaborate defence of these theses - providing such a defence is beyond the scope of this essay. This is unsatisfactory in view of their importance for the arguments. However, I find the assumptions very plausible, and I think they have been shown to be plausible by several philosophers. Moreover, establishing that they support Cl and C2, and thus cohe-

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rentism, is an important result, since it shows how coherentism fits with a larger philosophical programme, involving those assumptions. There are mainly three theses that will be important in the following. The first is what might be called an extensionalist view of meaning. This is the view that has prompted Quine and Davidson, in trying to explain what it is for a speaker's utterances to have meaning and her beliefs to have propositional content, to develop their notions of "radical translation" and "radical interpretation" respectively. I will hereafter concentrate on Davidson's views rather than Quine's. A radical interpreter is a person who in interpreting a speaker has detailed knowledge neither of the speaker's beliefs and other propositional attitudes, nor of the meanings of her utterances. The evidential base for radical interpretation must not presuppose such knowledge. It consists mainly of information of what sentences the speaker holds to be true, and, with respect to occasion sencences, information of the conditions under which she holds them to be true. The important point here is that what the utterances of a speaker mean, and what she believes, is determined by such evidence. What meanings we as fully informed radical interpreters would ascribe to a speaker's utterances, and what beliefs we would attribute to her, are what her utterances do mean and what she does believe. Underlying the extensionalist view of meaning is a view of language as an intrinsically social phenomenon, shared by Dewey, Quine, Wittgenstein, and Davidson. On this view, correct interpretation of someone's speech is in principle possible on the basis of publicly accessible information which presupposes neither knowledge of the meanings of her utterances nor of the contents of her beliefs (i.e. the evidence available in radical interpretation). Error on behalf of a competent and fully infonned radical interpreter is simply not possible. If this view seems implausible, consider its negation - it implies e.g. that a child (who in learning her first language might well be described as a radical interpreter) could grow up with completely erroneous views about the meanings of the utterances of her parents (in spite of being able to interact perfectly with them on the basis of her interpretations of their utterances). The second thesis is a holistic view of meaning, or rather of the propositional content of beliefs. Whether a belief with a certain content can reasonably be attributed to a person depends, on this view, on what

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else she believes. For each of her beliefs, its "subject matter" is determined by the rest of her beliefs. Davidson gives a vivid expression of this view: Beliefs are identified and described only within a dense pattern of beliefs. I can believe a cloud is passing before the sun, but only because I believe there is a sun, that clouds are made of water vapour, that water can exist in liquid or gaseous fonn; and so on, without end. No particular list of further beliefs is required to give substance to my belief that a cloud is passing before the sun; but some appropriate set of related beliefs must be there. If I suppose that you believe a cloud is passing before the sun, I suppose you have the right sort of pattern of beliefs to support that one belief [....] 1

The third thesis is the well-known "principle of charity". This is the view that, in radical interpretation, we must interpret others so that the sentences they hold true are by and large true, by our lights. In other words, we must in interpretation presuppose wide agreement between ourselves and the interpretee. 2 The need for such a principle stems from the interplay between belief and meaning. The evidence in radical interpretation consists mainly of information of what sentences the speaker holds to be true, and of the conditions under which she holds them true. However, what sentences a speaker holds to be true is a product of two factors - what the sentences mean and what the speaker believes about the world. Attribution of one set of meanings to the sentences held true yields one set of beliefs. Attribution of another set of meanings yields other beliefs, and so on. Given any set of meanings ascribed to the sentences, we can always make compensating assumptions about what she believes so as to fit the evidence. Thus, it seems that the evidence available in radical interpretation provides no ground for adjudicating between innumerable ways of

1 "The Method of Truth in Metaphysics", in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, p. 200. See also "Thought and Talk", also in Inquiries, p. 168. 2 The principle has been defended by Donald Davidson (in many places, see e.g. "Belief and the Basis of Meaning", in Inquiries, p. 152), but also by David Lewis ("Radical Interpretation", in Philosophical Papers (vol 1), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 112) and to some extent by W.V. Quine (Word and Object, pp. 59, 69).

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ascribing beliefs to the speaker and meanings to her utterances. Therefore, a theory of interpretation seems to lack empirical content entirely. But this conclusion conflicts with the assumption that it is in principle possible to find out the meanings of the utterances of the speaker, and the contents of her beliefs, on the basis of the information available in radical interpretation. The point of the principle of charity is that it allows us to hold one factor (the belief-factor) constant while determining the other. Therefore, we are no longer licensed to attribute to the speaker whatever set of beliefs we please, which means that the room for ascribing meanings to the sentences she holds true is radically limited. The principle of charity has been the object of extensive criticism.! Much of this criticism is sound, to the extent that it points out that the principle must leave room for explicable error on behalf of the person to be interpreted; Le. it must acknowledge the fact that we sometimes should attribute beliefs to the speaker that we think are false, on the ground that it is reasonable for her to hold them, given her epistemic perspective, her history, and so on. None of the adherents of the principle has, to my knowledge, held a different view. 2 Things stand differently, however, if the criticism is taken to support a stronger thesis. For instance, it might be held that it can be reasonable to attribute mostly false beliefs to a speaker, on the ground that it is rational for her to hold those beliefs, or that we would hold them as well, if we were in her position. 3 It seems to me that the difference beween those who hold such a view, and those, like Davidson, who defend the principle of charity, really hinges on holism.

1 See e.g. Grandy, R., "Reference, Meaning, and Belief', Journal of Philosophy 70 (1973), pp. 439-452; F~llesdal, D., "The Status of Rationality Assumptions in Interpretation and in the Explanation of Action", Dialectica 36 (1982), pp. 301-316; and Luper-Foy, S., "Doxastic Scepticism", The Southern Journal of Philosophy 25 (1987), pp. 529-538.

2 Davidson says that attibution of true beliefs should be tempered by "considerations of simplicity, hunches about the effects of social conditioning, and of course our common sense, or scientific, knowledge of explicable error" ("On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme", in Inquiries, p. 196). 3 It is doubtful, but possible, that Grandy and F~llesdal should be interpreted along this line, but Luper-Foy makes the view explicit. He says that "this policy [to attribute beliefs that we would have if we were in the speaker's situation] would sometimes call for the ascription to speaker's of (what according to the interpreter are) mostly false beliefs" ("Doxastic Scepticism", p. 533).

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Holism implies that whether someone believes some specific state of affairs to be the case depends on what else she believes. Therefore, attribution of a specific belief to a person must rest on assumptions about the rest of her beliefs. Suppose that a person accepts the sentence "most bachelors are unhappy", and that we wonder if it is reasonable to attribute the belief to her that most bachelors are unhappy. What assumptions would we have to make about her beliefs? No precise answer to that question can of course be given, but it is clear that we would have to presuppose that she agrees with us on a vast riumber of issues concerning bachelors and unhappiness, for instance that not all bachelors are married, etc. How could we otherwise be justified in thinking that she means the same thing by the sentence as we do, or indeed that she has any beliefs about bachelors at all? It simply makes no sense to attribute a belief with a specific content to a speaker, whether or not we think it is true, unless it is assumed that she holds a vast number of other beliefs that we actually share. The notion of two persons agreeing or disagreeing about some specific issue, while disagreeing about everything else is unimaginable. Once holism is accepted, at least the rather strong form advocated by Davidson (that every belief, "observational" or not, derives its content through its relations to other beliefs), charity is the only option. The critics of charity have either failed to see this, or reject holism. 1 The principle of charity needs clarification. Disagreements on some issues are probably more damaging to understanding than others. This must be accounted for. More must also be said about the conditions under which it is reasonable to attribute false beliefs to the interpretee. I will in the following have things to say primarily about the second of these issues. At this point, I just wish to state - at the risk of belabouring the point - what is in this context the essential feature of the principle: it implies that, as Davidson puts it, "if we want to understand others, we must count them right in most matters".2

1 At least if they at the same time think that there are persons with beliefs radically different from ours, and that they can be interpreted. Another position would be to accept the first conjunct and reject the second. This is the infamous thesis of radical incommensurability of theories, sometimes attributed to Kuhn and Feyerabend. Davidson argues convincingly in "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme" that such a position is unintelligible. 2 "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme", p. 197. That this observation is so little acknowledged is perhaps due to the fact that, in Davidson's words, "[w]hat is

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5.3.4 The arguments The argument for Cl is very simple. Essential premises are A2 and holism. Consider again A and B, and recall that A believes p. A2 is the thesis that the better p coheres with A's system, the greater the difference must be between A's and B's systems in order for not-p to cohere equally well with B's system. Holism implies that the greater the difference is between A's and B's systems, then, given that A holds p, the less plausible is it to attribute either p or not-p to B. The assumption that p coheres equally well with A's system as not-p with B's system becomes, therefore, more dubious, the better p coheres with A's beliefs. If p coheres sufficiently well with A's beliefs, the assumption that not-p coheres equally well with B's system, seems to imply that not-p cannot really be ascribed to B at all! Another way to put what really is the same argument is to point out that the principle of charity implies that the difference between A's and B's systems cannot be very extensive. There simply cannot be two persons whose systems of beliefs are radically different. Since the difference between A's and B's systems would, in order for not-p to cohere equally well with B's system, have to be greater the better p coheres with A's system, the assumption that not-p coheres equally well with B's system becomes more dubious the better p coheres with A's system. At some point it is unimaginable. Before the argument for C2 can be stated, it is necessary to reconsider the principle of charity. The principle, as I suggested in the previous section, is compatible with the attribution of false beliefs. Such attributions are indeed required by the principle under certain conditions. However, neither Davidson, nor any of his commentators, has been very precise as to when it is reasonable to attribute false beliefs (by our lights) to a speaker. Davidson claims that one possible motive for attributing errors to a speaker is that it is necessary in order to avoid making the theory of interpretation for the speaker overly complicated: "No simple theory can put a speaker and interpreter in perfect agreement, and so a workable theory must from time to time assume error on the part of one or the other". Error should in such cases be coped with "holisshared does not in general call for comment; it is too dull, trite, or familiar to stand notice" ("The Method of Truth in Metaphysics", p. 200).

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tically", and countenanced "where it can be best explained", but also in consideration of the fact that some disagreements are more damaging to understanding than others. 1 Considerations other than the overall simplicity of the theory of interpretation are also mentioned. According to Davidson, it might be unreasonable to attribute true rather than false beliefs to a speaker on some occasions, to some extent regardless of what consequences such an attribution has for the simplicity of the theory, given certain facts about the speaker and her place in the world. 2 Davidson and others stress that we, in attributing a false belief to a speaker, should be able to explain why she holds that false belief. 3 It seems to me that such an explanation to some extent must rationalize the speaker's belief. To explain why the speaker holds the belief is, on this view, to establish that it is rational for her to hold it, given her evidence and epistemic perspective (i.e. other beliefs). If this is the case, then it may be reasonable, or even obligatory, to attribute the belief to the speaker, even if it is false by our lights. 4 Perhaps the fact that the speaker holds a belief that we think is false, can be reasonably explained (with reference to, for instance, her education, perceptual apparatus, and personal history) even if the belief cannot be shown to be rational from her perspective, at least in some cases. It seems obvious, however, that our demands on such an explanation should be higher, the more irrational it is for the speaker to 1 See "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge", p. 318; "Thought and Talk", p. 169; and "Toward a Unified Theory of Meaning and Action", Grazer Philosophische Studien 2 (1980), p. 7. 2 See e.g. "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme", p. 196. 3 See "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge", p. 318; and "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme", p. 196. Grandy claims that if a translation implies that a speaker denies the truth of a statement whose truth is obvious this "counts heavily against the translation", unless an explanation can be offered ("Reference, Meaning, and Belief', p. 443), and Steven Lukes formulates the principle of charity as follows; "[C]ount them [the speakers] right unless we can't explain their being right or can better explain their being wrong" ("Relativism in its Place", in Hollis, M. & Lukes, S. (eds.), Rationality and Relativism, Oxford: Blackwell, 1982, p. 262). 4 This view is probably held by Lewis and FflSllesdal. See Lewis, "Radical Interpretation", p. 113, and FflSllesdal, D., "Meaning and Experience", in Guttenplan, S. (ed.), Mind and Language, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975, p. 40. Wittgenstein is possibly another adherent of this view. He asks: "Can we say: a mistake doesn't only have a cause, it also has a ground? I.e., roughly: when someone makes a mistake, this can be fitted into what he knows aright." (On Certainty (4th edition), Oxford: Blackwell, 1979, p. lIe.)

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hold the belief. In other words, if it would be irrational for the speaker to hold a belief that is false by our lights, this counts heavily against the attribution of that ,belief to the speaker. This fact could perhaps be outweighed by other considerations, but they would have to be more convincing the more irrational it would be for the speaker to hold the belief. The argument for C2 can now be spelled out. As was the case with the argument for C1, there are two versions. The first version makes use mainly of the following four premises: (1) The better the belief p, held by A, coheres with A's system, the worse not-p would cohere with A's system if A would believe not-p instead of p and otherwise hold the same beliefs. (2) The less rational it would be for a person to hold a belief that we think is false, the less plausible is it to attribute the belief to her. (3) The worse a belief coheres with someone's system, the less rational is it for her to hold it. (4) The greater the difference is between A's and B's systems, the less plausible is it to attribute either p or not-p to B, given that A holds p. Except for premise (3), all of these premises have been mentioned, and to some extent defended above: (1) (=A1) is mentioned in section 5.3.2; (2) was defended in a previous paragraph of the present section as a necessary elaboration of the principle of charity; and (4) is implied by the holistic view of the content of beliefs which is taken for granted. Premise (3) - an implication of coherentism - is essential to the argument. That an implication of coherentism is employed as a premise in an argument for C2, which in tum may be used for defending coherentism, may seem circular. However, this is not the case, since the argument only points out that C2 is a consequence of coherentism. We are therefore allowed to use coherentism as a premise. Given the four premises, we see that C2 follows. (2) and (4) imply that, in attributing false beliefs to others there is a tension between two ambitions: on the one hand to rationalize the beliefs, and on the other hand not to postulate too radical differences between our systems. These considerations pull in different directions, since in rationalizing disagreements we must postulate differences between our systems. Suppose we hold p. It follows from (1), (2) and (3) that the better p coheres with our system, the greater the difference must be between our system and the interpretee's system in order for us to reasonably attribute not-p to her. This, together with (4), implies that the better p

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coheres with our system, the less plausible is it to attribute not-p to someone else. In other words, the better p coheres with A's system, the less plausible is it to attribute not-p to B, either because the difference between A's and B's systems that must be postulated is too radical, or since it otherwise would be irrational for B to believe not-p to such an extent. The second version of the argument employs premises (1), (2), and (3), but (4) is replaced by an implication of the principle of charity, namely that A's and B's systems cannot differ radically. It follows from (1) and this implication of the principle of charity that: (5) The better p coheres with A's system, the worse not-p would cohere with B's system, if B would hold not-po It follows from (5) and (3) that: (6) The better p coheres with A's system, the less rational would it be for B to hold not-po It follows from (6) and (2), finally, that the better p coheres with A's system, the less plausible is it to attribute not-p to B - Le. the less likely is it that B holds not-p. A parenthetical remark: notice that C1 and C2 are compatible with the fact that we often and over important matters disagree with others, and also with the fact that our disagreeing beliefs may cohere well with our systems. To some extent, so are the premises of the arguments developed in this section. However, establishing C1 and C2 is sufficient for responding to the truth objection to the extent that it is based on the assumption that there may be equally coherent but radically different systems of beliefs. Finally, recall the question - when is it reasonable to attribute false beliefs to a speaker (Le. false by our lights)? The answer is obvious from what is said above. It is reasonable when we can rationalize her belief - show that it coheres well with the rest of her beliefs without having to presuppose that our systems differ too radically.1

1 There are similarities between my arguments and the argument Donald Davidson develops in "The Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge", mainly concerning the employment of the principle of charity. However, one difference is that I use the arguments in defence of Cl and C2, while Davidson uses his in favour of a radically different thesis; that most of our beliefs must be true. The claims I attempt to defend are in a sense more relevant to the defence of coherentism since they explain why those beliefs that best coheres with our system may reasonably be said to be most justified for us, and most likely to be true. Luper-Foy objects to Davidson's argument on the ground that it lacks such relevance - "he does not attempt to show that once we see what must be the case if a body of beliefs is to be coherent we will see that its coherence makes it very likely to be true" ("Doxastic Skepticism", p. 530).

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CHAPTER 5

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

A traditional objection to the idea of reflective equilibrium and coherentism is the truth objection. An essential premise of the truth objection is the view that justification should "lead towards" or "provide an indication of' truth. In section 5.2, I pointed out that this view may be interpreted in at least two different ways, equally supported by the intuition underlying the view. I argued that, on one of these interpretations, we can respond to the truth objection. Moreover, on the other interpretation, it is unclear how the intuition can help us in adjudicating between competing theories of epistemic justification, or how it could neutrally be established that maximizing coherence does not "lead towards" truth, as adherents of the truth objection claims. Intimately related to the truth objection is the claim that radically different and incompatible systems of beliefs may be justified according to coherentism. In section 5.3, I pointed out that, on the interpretation of condition C stated in section 5.2.2, its relevance to the reasonableness of coherentism is unclear. However, I also argued that the claim is implausible. At some level of coherence, the claim that the systems of two persons may be radically different but equally coherent is implausible. However, this conclusion is conditional on some assumptions about coherence, meaning and belief, of which at least the latter are controversial. Although no elaborate defence was provided in support of these basic assumptions, their initial plausibility was stressed as well as the fact that they are defended by some very influential philosophers.

CHAPTER 6

THE JUSTIFICATION OF MORAL BELIEFS

The arguments developed in chapter 5 in support of Cl and C2 make no mention of moral beliefs. Therefore, the following question might seem adequate: are Cl and C2 applicable to moral beliefs? This question could perhaps be confused with another: does the identification of the contents of moral beliefs presuppose widespread moral agreement to the extent assum~d by the arguments developed in support of Cl and C2 concerning belief in general? I think there are considerations against answering the second question affirmatively. The meanings of many of the words and phrases used for expressing moral beliefs could probably be identified without presupposing extensive moral agreement, since they occur also in many nonmoral contexts. And this would probably take us at least some of the way towards identifying the contents of moral beliefs. However, going all of the way would presuppose some moral agreement - i.e. when identifying the meanings of words and phrases used exclusively in moral contexts, such as "virtuous", "just", etc, or when identifying some context as being moral. If assumptions about the meanings of such phrases yield disagreement, this would indicate that the assumptions are dubious, but possibly there is evidence compensating for this, evidence having to do with the meanings of other terms and phrases used in expressing moral views. Anyway, this does not indicate that Cl and C2 are not applicable to moral beliefs, or that Cl and C2 are irelevant to the discussion of the truth objection and the theory of reflective equilibrium. It indicates rather that moral beliefs generally are less entrenched or integrated in our total system of beliefs. Or, in other words, it indicates that moral

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beliefs generally cohere less well with our system than many other beliefs. And this conclusion does in no way conflict with C1 or C2, or imply that C1 and C2 do not hold for moral beliefs. However, the claim that moral beliefs do not cohere significantly with our system is interesting. Given the theory of reflective equilibrium, it seems trivial that moral beliefs rnay be epistemically justified. Coherence is merely a matter of the evidential relations holding between a belief and our system, and such relations could surely hold between a moral belief and the rest of our beliefs. However, in this chapter, I will consider to what extent moral beliefs are justified, given the account of the theory of reflective equilibrium developed in this essay. I will state some considerations in support of the view that moral beliefs are not significantly justified, and that they are likely to be less justified than many nonmoral beliefs, at least if a coherentist approach to epistemic justification along the lines sketched in chapter 2 is applied also to them. Notice that I do not in this context regard the reasoning above concerning the identification of the contents of moral beliefs as in itself an argument for this view. 6.1

COHERENCE AND COMPLEXITY

According to the idea of reflective equilibrium, the justification of our moral beliefs is determined by the extent to which they cohere with our system. There are two general considerations indicating that our moral beliefs do not cohere significantly with our system. The first consideration is simply that the set of our moral beliefs forms a comparatively small subset of our system. The second consideration is that moral beliefs, such as principles and highly theoretical intuitions, are often rather vague. My evidence for these claims is admittedly quite slim, but I think they are mainly valid. The second consideration is relevant since some degree of preciseness is necessary in order for beliefs to actually stand in evidential relations, let alone support, and thus cohere with each other. In order to recognize the relevance of the first consideration, consider again the suggestions stated in section 2.2: if our system contains a C-set (or a C*-set) for a belief p such that it contains only a limited portion of our system, this indicates that p does not cohere significantly with our system.

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Assuming that an argument for a moral belief contains at least one moral premise, for every moral belief m held by a person A, a subset of A's moral beliefs is a C-set for m. In fact, most probably, for every moral belief m held by A, a very limited subset of the rest of her moral beliefs is likely to be a C-set for m. By the same token, a very limited subset of the rest of A's moral beliefs is likely to be a C*-set for m. Since A's moral beliefs form a relatively small subset of A's system, this indicates that m does not cohere significantly with her system. 6.2

THE RELIABILITY OF MORAL BELIEFS

An important difference between morality and nonmoral disciplines could be that, in the case of some nonmoral beliefs (e.g. perceptual judgments), we have reason to believe that they are reliably formed. This justification stems, it is held, from our theories about the causal relationships between our perceptual apparatus and the objects and features of the world our beliefs are about. However, there is no similar justification for regarding moral beliefs as reliably formed. For instance, Gilbert Harman argues that we have a grasp of the causal chain involved when the colour of an object affects the retinas of our eyes, and subsequently leads us to fonn the belief that the object has the colour in question. This grasp justifies us in explaining some such beliefs with reference to their truth - i.e. in some cases, it justifies us in concluding that such a belief is true from the fact that we entertain it. We have no similar account of any mechanism that might explain how moral facts generate moral beliefs. Therefore, there is no justification for explaining such beliefs with reference to their truth. 1 Harman takes this - the "immunity from observational testing" to be "the basic problem with ethics",2 and he concludes that moral realism is false. But although I think such an inference is dubious, the argument might have bearing on the issue at stake here: whether we have reason to regard some nonmoral beliefs, but no moral beliefs, as reliably formed.

1 See his "Moral Explanations of Natural Facts Against Moral Reality", pp. 62, 63, 64 & 66.

2 The Nature ofMorality, p. vii.

Can Moral Claims Be Tested

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How is this issue in tum relevant to the issue of whether the moral beliefs of a person are likely to be less justified than many nonmoral beliefs? One possibility is to argue that, no matter how well our moral beliefs cohere with our system, if there is no reason to think that any moral beliefs are reliably formed, there is no reason to think that they are justified to any extent. Another possibility is to claim that, unless we accept certain theories indicating that some of our moral belief are reliably formed, and unless we are to some significant extent justified in accepting these theories (unless they cohere with our system), our moral beliefs do not cohere well with our system. I will pursue the second line of reasoning. What does it mean that a belief is "reliably formed"? It means that the fact that it is formed under certain specifiable conditions strongly indicates that it is true. In other words, most members of a set of reliably formed beliefs are true, and this is explained by the fact that they are formed under the conditions in question. Suppose it is true that we are not justified in accepting any theories indicating that some of our moral beliefs are reliably formed. Why is this relevant to the extent to which our moral beliefs cohere with our system? In trying to answer this question, it might be helpful to consider the role of observational beliefs in the natural sciences. Observations are of course held to have a very important role. Although theories may derive support from their evidential relations to other theories, it is essential if a theory is supported, directly or indirectly, by observations. Observational beliefs may cohere with our system in virtue of being explained or entailed by the very theories they support. However, they may also obtain support from our views on reliability in the way suggested above - e.g. views to the effect that perceptual beliefs formed under normal conditions are reliable. These views, in tum, cohere with our system in virtue of being supported by theories we tend to accept explaining why such beliefs are reliably formed (e.g. optical theories), but also by our beliefs about the pragmatic success of relying on observational beliefs formed under the conditions in question (e.g. the belief that most times we reach out our hands in trying to touch something on the basis of what we see, we succeed). In fact, a great many of our beliefs seem, directly or indirectly, to support the reliability of observational beliefs formed under normal

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conditions. These considerations suggest that observational beliefs, and, thus, theories based on observational beliefs, may cohere significantly with our system, since it indicates that for such beliefs there is no C-set (and possibly no C*-set) such that it contains only a very limited number of our beliefs. Thus, it suggests that observational beliefs, as well as theories based on observations, are likely to be significantly justified for us, on a coherentist approach to epistemic justification. The significance of the consideration that we have reason to regard observational beliefs as reliably formed is suggested also by the following reasoning. Such beliefs are obviously not independently justified, since their justification hinges on other beliefs. However, their justification is at least to some extent independent of what their specific propositional contents are, since they are justified with reference to their genesis. Since the content of a belief determines which other beliefs it is logically and explanatorily related to, such beliefs are supported independently of standing in such relations to other beliefs. Therefore, they may, in a sense, provide independent support for other beliefs, and can induce "surprising" revisions among the rest of our beliefs, since our reasons for regarding them as reliable may outweigh the fact that they conflict with other beliefs. Particular moral judgments are sometimes held to play the same role in morality as observations in science. Principles derive support from their ability to explain such judgments, and this is relevant to their justification. However, suppose that neither particular moral judgments nor any other class of moral beliefs usually appealed to in support of moral principles may be justified with reference to theories indicating that they are reliably formed. This suggests that the justification they in tum may obtain from the system is more or less exhausted by the fact that they are explained or entailed by the very principles they are held to support. Thus, our system seems to contain a Cset (and a C*-set) for each of these beliefs which contains only a limited set of our (moral) beliefs. 11;lis indicates that moral beliefs are likely to be significantly less justified on the account of the theory of reflective equilibrium developed in this essay than e.g. beliefs essentially based on observations. 1 1 For a similar argument also appealing to the importance of observations in science while not relying on tthe denial of a coherentist account of epistemic justification in general, see Bergstrom, "Vardenihilism och argumentation i vardefrAgor", pp. 54-56. See also Haslett, "What Is Wrong with Reflective Equilibria?", p. 308. In

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Is there really no justification for regarding any moral beliefs as reliably formed? In an attempt to respond to the truth objection, David Brink has attempted to provide such justification. Brink argues that we do in fact have reason to regard a certain class of moral beliefs as reliable. 1 This class is picked out by a set of conditions, some of which are held to be "generally conducive to the formation of true beliefs", whereas others are thought to be conducive to the formation specifically of true moral beliefs. Beliefs belonging to this class - "considered moral beliefs" - are confidently held, stable over time, "not distorted by obvious forms of prejudice or self-interest", based on good inference patterns and available nonmoral evidence. Brink claims that the reliability of considered moral beliefs is explained by certain "psychological theories about cognitive reliability and generally plausible moral theories".2 These theories provide us with reason "to regard the class of considered moral beliefs as generally, or at least significantly, reliable".3 However, he says little about what "psychological theories about cognitive reliability" he has in mind, or how these and the moral theories more precisely are supposed to show that considered moral beliefs are reliably formed. One suggestion is that the psychological theories pick out the factors mentioned in the conditions - self-interest and prejudice, bad patterns of inference, insufficient evidence, and so on - as common sources of error. A person who is inclined to believe something as an effect of prejudice or self-interest tends to disregard evidence against that view, which perhaps is unfavourable in the search of truth. I think Brink's defence falls short of establishing that considered moral beliefs are "generally reliable" in the sense relevant here. Factors such as impartiality, lack of adequate information, etc, are usually mentioned in explanations of why people have formed false beliefs. The conditions of considered moral beliefs guarantee at most that none of those factors is involved in the formation of considered moral beliefs. However, the fact that there is no special reason for fact, many of the adherents to the truth objection mentioned in chapter 5 can possibly be interpreted along this line. 1 Moral Realism and the Foundations ofEthics, p. 132. 2 Ibid, p. 136.

3 Ibid, p. 135.

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thinking that considered moral beliefs are not reliably formed is not a reason for thinking that they are reliably formed. Otherwise, the reliability of any kind of beliefs could easily be established, whatever their subject - "considered spiritual beliefs", "considered religious beliefs", and so on. In other words, the fact that some moral beliefs satisfy the conditions of considered moral beliefs is perfectly compatible with, and provides us with no reason to doubt, the absence of a reliable beliefforming procedure for moral beliefs. And if we cannot presuppose that we at least sometimes are reliable detectors of moral facts, we have no reason to think that a person whose moral beliefs are formed and held under the conditions of considered moral beliefs has even a slightly better chance of being right in moral matters than a person whose moral beliefs are not so fonned. If we are altogether "blind" to moral facts, it helps little in the search of moral truth that we are wellinformed about what seem to be relevant empirical aspects, or that our inference patterns are sound, and so on. What are the prospects of success for an attempt to establish the reliability of some class of moral beliefs, such as Brink's? In my view, there is a general consideration indicating that the prospects are pretty bleak: it is doubtful whether any class of moral beliefs can be delimited, merely with reference to how its members are formed, in such a way that it may plausibly be argued that most of the beliefs belonging to that class are true. Of course, it must be possible to characterize the class in such a way that we do not presuppose that most of its members are true. If we keep this in mind, it seems likely that any class of moral beliefs picked out by a set of conditions on the formation of its members will to a significant extent contain inconsistent beliefs (or that the class is very small, so that it becomes evidentially insignificant Le. so that the judgments it contains cannot adjudicate between competing moral principles 1). And this is perhaps the main difference between morality and other areas, indicating that moral beliefs generally are less justified than nonmoral beliefs. 2 1 This point is made by Lars Bergstrom in "Vardenihilism och argun1entation i vardefrAgor", pp. 55-56; and Viirdeteori (in Swedish), Stockholm: Thales, 1990, p. 100.

2 I thank Nicholas Sturgeon for helpful comments on a preliminary draft of this section.

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CHAPTER 6

MORAL PRINCIPLES AND JUDGMENTS ON CONCRETE CASES

Our moral beliefs are likely to include views about concrete cases, concerning the rightness, goodness, or justice of actual actions, states of affairs, or institutions. Moreover, such beliefs are often thought to enter into the justification of other moral beliefs, such as principles. However, in many cases, principles entail and explain (support, or obtain support from) such beliefs only if some set of nonmoral assumptions is assumed - Le. assumptions implying that the principles yield conclusions equivalent to the judgments when applied to the cases in question. Thus, on the position stated in section 3.1, the justification of the moral beliefs of a person A is likely to depend on the extent to which A is justified in believing a set of nonmoral claims. The nonmoral claims relevant to the application of many moral principles to concrete cases often concern extremely complicated issues. For instance, this is true of classical utilitarianism, but also of other principles holding that the total consequences of an action at least partly detennine its moral status. It is very unlikely that people hold justified beliefs about such matters. Thus, insofar as the level of justification of A's moral beliefs depends on the extent to which A is justified in accepting such claims, A is not likely to be justified in holding her moral beliefs to any significant extent. So, even if (contrary to what was argued in section 6.2) we would have reason to regard particular judgments about concrete cases as reliably formed, the prospects of such judgments justifying us in acepting e.g. moral principles still seem distant. However, a moral belief might obtain support from arguments containing only moral members. 1 I suggest that, if a person is not justified in accepting the nonmoral members of an argument for a moral belief m, the support obtained from this argument should not be held to affect its coherence with her system in a positive direction, nor its justification. For instance, suppose that the system S of A contains an argument for m such that A is not justified in accepting its nonmoral premises. None of its premises should in this context be con1 Torbjom Tannsjo has suggested in conversation that the strategy appropriate for a utilitarian is to suspend judgment on the moral evaluation of all concrete cases.

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ceived as a member of some C-set or C*-set for m contained by S (at least not in virtue of being a premise of this argument). Thus, given the claim that A is not justified in holding those of her nonmoral beliefs that are positively relevant to her moral beliefs, m might cohere with A's system merely in virtue of being supported by arguments containing solely moral members (say, judgments about imaginary cases). In such a case, the point made in section 6.1 becomes even more apparent. For every C-set (and C*-set) S* for m contained by the system S of A, S* is a subset of A's moral beliefs. Again, since A's moral beliefs form a comparatively small subset of her system, this indicates that m does not cohere significantly with her system. 1 6.4

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The conclusion reached in this chapter is sceptical, but vague. A moral sceptic would possibly want to defend a stronger thesis: that moral knowledge is impossible, and that moral beliefs are never justified, as opposed to beliefs in other areas. However, a vague conclusion is all that might be expected, given the view of justification developed in this essay. On this view, coherence and justification is a matter of degree, and no claim is made as to when beliefs are justified or unjustified in a more absolute sense. It might seem controversial to claim that the issue of whether there is knowledge and justification in an area is detennined by the extent to which beliefs in that area are evidentially connected (in the sense suggested in chapter 2) with our system. And defending moral sceptIcism on the basis of this claim might seem implausible. An implication of this view seems to be that if we in any area - e.g. aesthethics, theology, etc - achieve some level of evidential complexity, our beliefs in that area could be significantly justified. However, is this implication really that implausible? Recall that many other attempts to provide a basis for determining whether there is knowledge and epistemic justification in an area - for instance on the ground that the beliefs of that area are verifiable, etc - have proven largely unsuccessful.

1 For a somewhat similar reasoning, defending a stronger sceptical conclusion, see my "Utilitarianism and the Idea of Reflective Equilibrium", Southern Journal of Philosophy 29 (1991), pp. 395-406.

APPENDIX

JOHN RAWLS AND THE THEORY OF REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM

The role of the idea of reflective equilibrium in Rawls's attempt to defend his conception of justice is merely indirect. In defending this conception he appeals to a complicated contract apparatus. The idea of reflective equilibrium is held to support this contract apparatus as a reasonable device for selecting nloral principles. The purpose of this appendix is to describe the contract apparatus in some detail, and to explore its relationship to the idea of reflective equilibrium. Rawls's conception of justice - encapsulated in the slogan "Justice as Fairness" - consists mainly of two normative principles (two "principles of justice"): "the principle of greatest possible equal liberty" and "the difference principle". These principles determine, according to Rawls, how "the basic structure of society" should be arranged. They do not answer normative questions such as what particular actions are morally right, etc. The basic structure of a society is "the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from social cooperation" (A Theory of Justice, p. 7).1 Rawls argues that the justification of his conception of justice stems from the fact that the principles would be chosen in a hypothetical contract· situation; the so-called "original position". In the next section, I will describe the original position. After that, I will discuss its relationship to the idea of reflective equilibrium.

1 All page references in the appendix are to A Theory of Justice, unless otherwise stated.

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THE ORIGINAL POSITION

The parties

By whom would Rawls's principles be chosen? Rawls says many things about the parties of the original position. They are contemporary members of the same society - that is, they all live at one and the same time in the history of the society to which they belong. The society in question exists under conditions of "moderate scarcity"; natural and other recources are not abundant enough to make cooperation superfluous, but conditions are not so hard that cooperative ventures become fruitless. There is a common interest in cooperation, since it makes possible a better life for all, but also a conflict of interests, since there is divergence of fundamental ends and beliefs. According to Rawls, these circumstances - "the circumstances of justice" - are necessary for the problem of justice to arise in a society (see pp. 126-130 for a discussion of these circumstances). The parties are moreover "free", "rational" and "equal" (p. 11). The equality consists mainly in the fact that "all have the same rights in the procedure for choosing principles; each can make proposals, submit reasons for their acceptance, and so on" (p. 19). Furthermore, everyone has a veto in the decision procedure; the decision of the parties must be unanimous. However, it will tum out that this equality has no bearing on the choice of the parties. Rawls argues that the restrictions on the original position and the parties are such that we can view the choice [...] from the standpoint of one person selected at random.

If anyone after due reflection prefers a conception of justice to another, then they all do, and a unanimous agreement can be reached. (p. 139, see also "Reply to Alexander and Musgrave", 1 p. 638)

No negotiation or anything of the sort will ever take place, where the equal rights to submit reasons and make proposals could make a difference with respect to the choice of the parties. The same holds, I think:, for the "freedom" of the parties. However, the rationality of the parties will prove very important. Rawls does not want to make any controversial claims about ratio1 Quarterly Journal of Economics, 88 (1974).

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nality, but holds that "[t]he concept of rationality invoked here [...] is the standard one familiar in social theory" (p. 143). This concept implies that the parties are "taking the most effective means to given ends" (p. 14, see also p. 143). However, there is one somewhat surprising feature of the Rawlsian view on rationality. A rational individual, according to Rawls, "does not suffer from envy": she is "not ready to accept a loss for himself if only others have less as well" (p. 143). A related feature of the parties of the original position concerns their motivation. When choosing between alternative conceptions of justice, each of the parties tries as best as she can to advance her own interests; i.e. each prefers principles such that the society, if governed by these principles, will be the best possible in view of her own private interests and the possibility to further these interests (p. 142). Moreover, the parties are mutually disinterested; that is, each is totally indifferent to the impact of their choice on the interests of their fellow members of the original position. Finally, the palties are capable of a "sense of justice", which is "public knowledge" among them. They can "rely on each other to understand and to act in accordance with whatever principles are finally agreed to" (p. 145). "Formal" conditions What are the parties to choose in the original position? They are to choose principles that will determine the basic structure of their society, and thereby "settle the basic terms of their association" (p. 118). However, Rawls imposes certain so-called "formal" conditions on the alternative conceptions of justice open to the parties. At most two of these conditions are properly called "formal". These conditions imply that the principles to be choosen must be "general" and "universal". It must "be possible to formulate them without the use of [...] proper names, or rigged definite descriptions" (p. 131), and they are to be applied universally - they are supposed to "hold for everyone in virtue of their being moral persons" (p. 132). Of the other so-called "formal" conditions, the "publicity condition" is interesting. This condition is related to Rawls's vision of "the wellordered society". A well-ordered society is "effectively regulated by a public conception of justice" (p. 5); that is, each member of the society accepts, and knows that the others accept, the same principles of justice,

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and the basic structure of the society complies with, and is rationally believed by each member to comply with, these principles. The relevance of this notion to the choice of the parties in the original position is brought out by the following claim: the parties should choose principles under the assumption that their society is wellordered (p. 8, see also "Reply to Alexander and Musgrave", p. 637). Thus, they should assess a conception of justice, not only in view of the consequences of the fact that the conception would regulate the society, but also in view of the consequences of the fact that this would be recognized by its members (pp. 133, 454, see also "Reply to Alexander and Musgrave", p. 641). The "publicity condition" is a consideration to which Rawls refers in trying to show that his two principles would be preferred to, for instance, the principle of average utility (p. 181). There is another aspect of the Rawlsian vision of a well-ordered society which is held to be relevant to the choice of the parties: a wellordered society is "stable" with respect to its conception of justice. This is the case when the conception "generates its own support". That is; the members of the society tend to acquire a generally effective "sense of justice" - Le. "a desire to act in accordance with these principles [the principles regulating the basic structure of society] and to do their part in institutions which exemplify them" (p. 177). Rawls believes that such stability is a desirable feature of a moral conception (p. 455), but it is not clear how this fits with his theory as a whole. One possibility is that the self-interest of the parties, together with their knowledge of certain general facts concerning social cooperation, ensures that they take the stability of the alternative conceptions of justice into consideration. This would, perhaps, make them disposed to prefer stable conceptions (at least other things being equal), since such conceptions are "securing the stability of social cooperation" (p. 138). A society based on a stable conception of justice might be a better place for furthering one's interests. Another possibility is that Rawls thinks he can derive the concern of the parties for stability from the assumption that they themselves have a "sense of justice". This ensures that they will not make an agreement they know they cannot keep in real life, or can keep only with great difficulty. Therefore, they will try to avoid conceptions such that they, given certain general facts about human psychology, will cease to respect them in real life (see the relevant discussion in p. 145).

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The veil of ignorance

The underlying idea of the original position is the concept of "pure procedural justice". RawIs wants to characterize the original position in such a way that the outcome - the choice of the parties - will be just, however it turns out. The circumstances under which the parties are to reach agreement are intended to be "fair" between them, and this "fairness" is supposed to transfer to the principles that would be choosen. Thus the name, "Justice as Fairness" (p. 120, see also "Reply to Alexander and Musgrave", p. 637). To ensure this fairness, the choice in the original position is made behind a "veil of ignorance". The parties are deprived of certain information, mainly concerning how the alternative conceptions of justice will affect their own lives in the society. They do not know their place or social position in the society, nor their fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities. They do not know what plans, interests or goals they entertain. Nor do they know any specific features of their psychology - their attitude towards risks, or their liability to optimism or pessismism. Moreover, with one exception to be mentioned, they are not allowed any information about the particular facts of the society, e.g. about its economic or political situation, or its level of civilisation and culture. And to ensure fairness between generations, they do not know to which generation they belong (see pp. 136-142 for a discussion of the veil of ignorance). On what ground, then, are the parties to make their choice? In response to this question, Rawls introduces the notion of "primary social goods". These are things a rational person wants whatever else she wants. The reason is that, with such goods, "men can generally be assured of greater success in carrying out their intentions and in advancing their ends, whatever these ends may be" (p. 92). As examples of such goods, Rawls mentions "rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income and wealth" but also "a sense of one's worth" (p. 92). Rawls assumes that each of the parties of the original position evaluates the alternative conceptions of justice in view of how much primary social goods she could be expected to get in the society. Each wants simply as much primary social goods as possible. Unless such evaluations are to be totally arbitrary, the parties must be allowed some information. The only particular fact about the society

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to which they belong known by the parties is that it is subject to the circumstances of justice. However, there are no restrictions on "general" information. As such, Rawls counts knowledge of economic theory, the sociological basis of social organization and cooperation, and the laws of human psychology, etc. The choice of the parties

According to Rawls, a conception of justice is reasonable to the extent that it would be chosen in the original position. However, his claim that the principle of greater equal liberty and the difference principle would be chosen should not be interpreted as implying that they would be preferred to all possible conceptions of justice, only that they would be preferred to some of the traditional moral conceptions, e.g. classical and average utilitarianism (p. 124). Is this true? Rawls seems to think that, given the beliefs and interests of the parties, their rationality, the veil of ignorance, the "formal" conditions, etc, it follows logically which of the competing conceptions of justice the parties of the original position would choose. He claims that the choice of his principles is "the only choice consistent with the full description of the original position" (p. 121). The view that it could follow logically what a rational person would do in some situation is, according to Rawls, "familiar in social theory" (p. 119), and could therefore be applied also in this case. However, Rawls has not attempted to prove that it follows logically from the description of the original position that his conception of justice would be chosen, even if he thinks that such a proof in principle could be produced (see e.g. p. 121). Instead, he merely points to certain considerations supporting the claim that his principles would be preferred to, for instance, the principle of average utility. One such consideration is the thickness of the veil of ignorance. The thickness of the veil does not allow the parties to estimate likelihoods with respect to what social positions, etc, they hold in their society. This suggests that the parties would adopt a maximin strategy, and hence prefer the difference principle (pp. 155-157).1 1 This view has been contested by S.S. Alexander and R.A. Musgrave who clainl that Rawls must stipulate that the parties are very aversive to risks in order to make plausible that they would adopt a miximin strategy. See Alexander, S.S., "Social Evaluation Trough Notional Choice", Quarterly Journal of Economics, 88 (1974), pp.

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Moreover, Rawls argues that a feeling of self-worth would be more fostered in a society publicly governed by his principles, than in a society publicly governed by the principle of average utility.l THE ORIGINAL POSITION AND THE IDEA OF REFLECTIVE EQUILffiRIUM It is not clear that Rawls's principles of justice would be choosen in the original position, nor even that the question of what principles would be chosen has a determinate answer (perhaps several conflicting choices are consistent with the description of the original position).2 However, suppose that Rawls's principles would be choosen. This is supposedly due to the description of the original position the thickness of the veil, the "formal" conditions, the psychology of the parties, etc. If the original position had been differently characterized, maybe a different set of principles would be chosen. What, then, justifies a specific description of the original position? Rawls suggests different answers to this question. He claims that his construal of the original position is favoured "from a philosophical point of view" (p. 118), since it "incorporates conditions which it is thought reasonable to impose on the choice of principles" (p. 120), such as that "no one should be advantaged or disadvantaged by natural fortune of social circumstances in the choice of principles" (p. 18). Another proposal involves the notion of reflective equilibrium. Rawls argues that, besides showing that it incorporates "reasonable philosophical conditions", [t]here is [...] another side to justifying a particular description of the original position. This is to see if the principles which would be chosen match our considered convictions of justice [....] We can note whether applying these principles would lead us to make the same judgments [...] which we now make intuitively and in which we have the greatest confidence. (p. 19) 597-624; and Musgrave, R.A., "Maximin, Uncertainty, and the Leisure Trade-Off', Quarterly Journal of Economics 88 (1974), pp. 625-632. 1 However, this is contested by Hare, see "Rawls' Theory of Justice", pp. 106107. 2 As Alexander and Musgrave suggest, probably a number of more or less controversial additional stipulations must be made in order to ensure the choice of Rawls's principles.

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Thus, a particular description of the original position is justified to the extent that it yields principles matching our considered moral judgments (about justice). It is unclear whose considered judgments are referred to by "ours". This is crucial since the considered judgments of one person might differ from those of another. Rawls acknowledges this problem, but apart from saying that our (?) considered judgments are "approximately the same" (p. 50), he offers no solution. A natural way of handling it is to say that the justification of a particular description of the original position should be relativized to persons. Suppose that a description of the original position yields principles that conflict with some of our considered moral judgments. In response to this scenario, Rawls sketches the following, by now well-known, process: By going back and forth, sometimes altering the conditions of the contractual circumstances, at others withdrawing our judgnlents and conforming them to principle, I assume that eventually we shall find a description of the initial situation that both expresses reasonable conditions and yields principles which match our considered judgments duly pruned and adjusted. This state of affair I refer to as reflective equilibrium. (p. 20)

When the state of reflective equilibrium is reached, the resulting description of the original position is justified. As a consequence, so are the principles yielded. However, given this view of the justification of the description of the original position, the appeal to the contract apparatus might seem superfluous. The description of the original position is said to be justified by yielding principles which match our considered judgments. Therefore, the fact that a certain set of principles would be preferred in the original position does not seem to support the principles independently of their match with our considered judgments. The "rigged" contract apparatus is merely a roundabout and fanciful way of expressing this. As Richard Hare notes,l Rawls seems sometimes to embrace such a view in saying things such as; "[w]e want to define the original position so that we get the desired solution" (p. 141).

1 "Rawls' Theory of Justice", p. 91.

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The Urigged" contract and wide reflective equilibrium

Norman Daniels denies that the contract apparatus is superfluous. 1 Recall Daniels's distinction between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium. The notion relevant to the justification of a set of moral views is, according to Daniels, wide rather than narrow. In wide reflective equilibrium, principles do not only obtain support from our considered moral judgments, but also from certain "philosophical arguments", which can be construed as, in a loose sense, inferences from a set of philosophical "background theories". These background theories are held to support the principles to some extent independently of their match with considered judgments. Daniels argues that the contract apparatus reflects a set of philosophical background theories. These theories support the contract apparatus as a reasonable device for theory-selection in ethics, and explain the various features of the original position, to some extent independently of whether the principles yielded match our considered judgments. How does this fit with Rawls's remarks to the effect that if the principles that would be chosen in the original position conflicts with our considered judgments, this may be a reason for altering the description of the original position? Quite well, if we acknowledge the basically coherentist character of the idea of reflective equilibrium. The fact that the principles yielded by a particular description of the original position conflict with our considered judgments could be a reason for altering the description and revising the underlying background theories. However, it could also be a reason for revising the considered judgments. What revisions we.~hould make depend on the resulting overall coherence of our moral views. Which background theories are reflected in Rawls's contract apparatus? Daniels mentions mainly three: a theory of the person; a theory of pure procedural justice; and a theory of "the role of morality in society", which includes the vision of a well-ordered society. The theory of pure procedural justice is underlying the whole concept of a contract apparatus as a device for theory-choice in ethics, and is reflected in at least some of the features of the veil of ignorance 1 E.g. in "Reflective Equilibrium and Archimedean Points".

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(those guaranteeing impartiality). However, as Hare notes,! other features of the veil cannot be accounted for by the theory of pure procedural justice - e.g. that the parties are not allowed to know any specific features of their society. According to Daniels, this is instead explained by the fact that the parties must choose principles under the assumption that the principles will regulate the basic structure of their society. Daniels writes: Suppose we agree that the basic structure shapes persons in various important ways and should itself be the subject of justice [...] A very thin veil [...] that let us [the parties] see main features of our society though not ourselves, introduces information already affected by the workings of some basic structure. The chance thus arises we will select particular principles bacause we are directly or indirectly

causally influenced by a basic structure not regulated by principles of justice we otherwise would rationally select. This danger should incline us to choose the thicker veil.2

In trying to support the contract apparatus and its various features, Rawls sometimes appeals to what he calls a "Kantian" conception or ideal of the person, which he holds to be latent in our political traditions. 3 This conception conceives of persons as "free, rational, and equal moral persons". It is not transparent how this ideal is supposed to justify the contract apparatus. Rawls seems to hold that, since persons have these "Kantian" properties, they are bound only by principles they would choose "represented" as such. This explains the thickness of the veil of ignorance, since the veil ensures precisely that the parties of the original position are represented only as free, autonomous and equal: The parties are not to be influenced by any particular information that is not part of their representation as free and equal moral persons with a determinate (but unknown) conception of the good, unless this information is necessary for a rational agreement to be reached. 4 1 "Rawls' Theory of Justice", p. 89. 2 "Reflective Equilibrium and Archimedean Points", p. 99. 3 Especially in "Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory". This seems to be what Daniels has in mind when talking about Rawls's "theory of the person".

4 Ibid, p. 549.

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The Kantial ideal of the person is, moreover, reflected in that the parties of the original position are rational and "equal" (i.e. everyone has "the same rights and powers in the procedure for reaching agreement").} However, as I argued above, it is doubtful whether the equality has any impact on what choice the parties of the original position would make.

The role of background theories It is not clear if the background theories cited by Daniels really justify a description of the original position specific enough to yield a determinate choice of the parties, but suppose they do. In order for the principles to obtain independent support from the contract apparatus, the background theories must to some significant extent be disjoint from the considered judgments. This is stressed by Daniels. However, the distinction between background theories and considered moral judgments in the context of Rawls's theory is not based on some assumption to the effect that the background theories, in contrast to the considered judgments, are nonmoral. Daniels acknowledges that the background theories may be morally "loaded". Instead, they are supposed to differ from the considered judgments in not incorporating "the same type of moral notions as are employed by the principles".2 The considered judgments do supposedly incorporate these notions. This is why they, in a more direct sense, are relevant to testing the principles. The principles may conflict with, and entail the judgments, not having to assume a context of perhaps complicated moral auxiliary hypotheses. The role of the contract apparatus might be construed in the following way: it brings out the relevance of a set of highly theoretical and general moral intuitions - the background theories - to the principles. Constructing arguments of the kind developed by Rawls is a way of clarifying the intuitions to the extent that they become relevant to other of our moral beliefs, as well as a way of discovering what their relevance are. Had it not been for the contract apparatus, or any similar "philosophical argument", the principles had not been } Ibid, p. 550. 2 "Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in Ethics", p. 260.

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supported by arguments essentially involving these background theories as premises. According to the views stated in chapter 2, the extent to which a person is justified in accepting a moral principle is partially determined by how large a portion of the rest of her beliefs it is evidentially connected to, as well as by the evidential complexity of this set. Rawls's strategy aims at increasing the coherence of the principles with our system. The fact that a set of principles obtain support from a set of background theories, as well as from the rest of our moral beliefs, indicate that they cohere better with our system than had they not obtained such support. And this not only increases the justification of the principles, but also the justification of all our other moral beliefs to which the principles are positively relevant. CONCLUSION The relationship between Rawls's contract apparatus and the idea of reflective equilibrium is apparent from what is said above. The contract apparatus does not provide an independent test of moral principles. It is justified as a device for theory choice in ethics both by the fact that it yields principles that match our considered judgments, and by enjoying support from a set of background theories. Maybe the background theories initially held suggested a certain description of the original position, yielding principles that conflict with some of our considered judgments. In such a case, we must revise either the considered judgments, or the background theories (and as a consequence the principles they yield), or both. Rawls thinks that we should do a little bit of both, until we end up with a description such that it both yields principles matching our (revised) considered judgments, and obtains support from the (revised) background theories. At this point, a certain level of coherence is attained - the principles are supported by many of our moral views, not only by our considered moral judgments. This coherence explains why the principles, as well as the considered judgments and the background theories, are to some extent justified for us. The contract apparatus is only a device for bringing about the coherence.

REFERENCES

Alexander, S.S., "Social Evaluation Through Notional Choice", Quarterly Journal of Economics, 88 (1974), pp. 597-624. Alston, W., "Concepts of Epistemic Justification", The Monist 68 (1985), pp. 57-89. Audi, R., "Justification, Truth, and Reliability", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (1988), pp. 1-29. Ayer, A.J. (ed.), Logical Positivism, New York: Free Press, 1959. Bayles, M., "Intuitions in Ethics", Dialogue 23 (1984), pp. 444-452. Bergstrom, L., "Vardenihilism och argumentation i vardefrIigor" (in Swedish), Filosofisk tidskrift 1 (1980), pp. 35-56. - Viirdeteori (in Swedish), Stockholm: Thales, 1990. Bonjour, L., The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985. Blanshard, B., The Nature of Thought (vol 2), London: Allen & Unwin, 1939. Bradley, F.H., Essays on Truth and Reality, New York: Oxford University Press, 1914. Brandt, R., A Theory of the Good and the Right, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. - "The Explanation of Moral Language", in Copp & Zimmerman (eds.), Morality, Reason and Truth, pp. 104-119. - "The Concept of Rational Belief', The Monist 68 (1985), pp. 323. Brink, D.O., Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Burge, T., "Individualism and Psychology", Philosophical Review 95 (1986), pp. 3-45. Clifford, W.C., The Ethics of Belief, London: Thinker's Library, 1947. Cooper, W. I., "Taking Reflective Equilibrium Seriously", Dialogue 20 (1981), pp. 548-555.

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INDEX

Alexander, 129f Alston, 14, 96, 101 background theories (see reflective equilibrium, wide/narrow) Bayles, 96 belief, concept of, 11, 35f, 92, 106-112 Bergstrom, 12,84,89, 119, 121 Blanhard, 32f, 85, 98 Bonjour, 31-35, 96ff Bradley, 32 Brandt, 14, 20, 23ff, 95f Brink, 28, 30, 32, 36, 41, 45ff, 98f, 120f Burge, 78 C-set, 42f, 46f, 68, 116f, 119, 123; definition of, 42 C*-set, 43, 46f, 68, 116f, 119, 123; definition of, 43 Clifford, 41 coherence, 32-44; as a property, 46 coherence view of truth, 97 considered moral beliefs, 120 considered moral judgments, 17-28, 131-134 contract apparatus, 19f, 124-134 Copp,29,95 Cornman, 84 Dancy, 33, 90, 96ff

Daniels, 25-28, 45, 47, 56f, 6068, 132-135 Davidson, 37, 72,106-111,113 deontic logic, 51 DePaul, 28, 30, 45ff, 87f Diallelus argument, 100 difference principle, 124, 129 Dworkin, 29, 95 epistemic conservatism, 80 epistemic justification, 10, 1316,52, 99ff evidential support, 38, 41, 50 Ewing,32f extensionalism, 106 externalism, 78 Firth, 15, 85 Fogelin,80 Foley, 84f foundationalism, 10, 43, 102 F01lesdal, 108, 111 Goldman, A.H., 96f Goldman, A.I. 90 Goodman, 10, 17,81 Grandy, 108, 111 Hare, 20-23, 25, 95, 131f, 133 Harman, 15, 32ff, 42, 73-76, 80, 92f, 117 Haslett, 28, 86, 119 Holmgren, 28, 30,61 holism: regarding confirmation of theoretical sentences, 69-

144

INDEX

72; regarding belief-attribution, 106-113 Horwich, 95f, 102 independence constraint, 27f, 134 independently justified, 10, 43, 102 intemalism, 78, 90 isolation argument, 35, 94 . knowledge, 13f Lehrer, 32, 34f, 72 Lewis, C.I., 97 Lewis, D., 107, 111 Little, 29, 86, 95 lottery paradox, 84f Lukes, 111 Luper-Foy, 108, 113 Lyons, 20~ 23, 26,95 meaning (see also belief, concept of), 70 moral scepticism, 9, 123 Musgrave, 129f Moor, 80 negatively relevant, 41, 46, 49; definition of, 41 Neurath, 32 observational beliefs, 35f, 118f observation requirement, 35 original position, 20, 125-134 Parfit, 57-61, 65ff Pollock, 94,96f positively relevant, 38-41, 55f, 67, 135; definition of, 38 (see also 39, note 1) principle of charity, 107-113 principle of greatest possible equal liberty, 124, 129 Quine, 15, 69, 77f, 80, 106f

radical interpretation, 106-112 radical translation, 106 Rawls, 9,17-20,31, 60f, 124134 Raz,46f realism, 22, 98 reflective equilibrium, procedure of, 9, 19,47-50, 87f, 131; state of, 9, 119, 45-48, 131; wide/narrow, 25-28, 56f, 67f, 132-135 relativism, 21 f reliabilism, 90 reliably formed, definition of, 118 Rescher, 32, 98 Rorty, 37 Rudner, 41 Scheffler, 77f, 80-85 Schlick, 97 Sellars, 32f, 80 Sencertz, 95 Shaw, 29 Singer, 20-25 Sosa,97 subjectivism,21f Sullivan, 29 thought experiments, 50 Timmons, 95, ,99 Tolland, 29 truth (see also realism; coherence view of truth), 12 truth objection, 44, 94-102 Tann~o, 16,28,60,75,122 underdetennination claim, 62 well-ordered society, 63, 132 White, 69-73 Wittgenstein, 111