Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Random thoughts

Hit a bit of a wall, trying to feel my way forward. Here's some random thoughts:

More problems with Enoch

Enoch writes, "Instances of inference to the best explanation are justified, then, because they are arguments from indispensability to the explanatory project, which is essentially unavoidable." In another paper, he writes "Employing IBE is needed for successfully engaging in the explanatory project, and this explains why we are justified in employing IBE as a basic rule in our thought."

So IBE is justified for the sake of our explanatory project. But does that allow us to use IBE when we are not seeking an explanation. Sometimes we seek knowledge because we're interested in explaining things. This is, quite plausibly, what is motivating much of scientific investigation. But don't we also seek knowledge for many reasons besides explanation? I want to know what's causing my ceiling to be dripping water. I employ IBE to infer that it's because there is a pipe that is burst. But my use of IBE is only justified for the sake of the explanatory project. Is it so clear that I am justified in using it in this context, which has nothing to do with explanation? This project is quite optional; I could just give it up. Shouldn't I only infer to the best explanation when failing to do so would undermine the explanatory project? A response could be that if I don't always infer to the best explanation, then I'm failing to truly engage in the explanatory project. But isn't that claim just the claim that I must be seeking explanations at all times? So let's refine what we're saying: it would seem inconsistent to employ IBE sometimes and fail to use IBE at other times. But what's at issue is not our use of IBE, but our evaluation of when such use is justified and when it is not. But maybe I'm still missing the point. Maybe once IBE is justified once, it's justified in every context. But this makes the justification of IBE mysterious. If we only need to justify IBE in certain contexts, why should we overextend ourselves?

Also, here's a way to present their argument:
(1) What we mean by epistemic justification is "being epistemically responsible."
(2) If we are in a situation where "if the method is not effective the relevant rationally required project is doomed to systematic failure" then it is epistemically reponsible, and hence epistemically justified, to believe that the method is effective.
(3) The explanatory project is rationally required, and is doomed to failure if IBE is not effective.
(4) We are epistemically justified in believing in IBE.

Sayre-McCord

Still another reply, compatible with the first two but relying specifically on neither, shifts attention from science and from mathematics and logic, to epistemology itself. To think of any set of considerations that they justify some conclusion is to make a claim concerning the value (albeit the epistemic as opposed to moral value) of a conclusion. To hold of science, or mathematics, or logic, that there is a difference between good evidence or good arguments and bad ones is again to commit oneself evaluatively. This raises an obvious question: under what conditions, and why, are epistemic claims reasonably thought justified? Whatever answer one might begin to offer will immediately provide a model for an answer to the parallel question raised about moral judgments. There is no guarantee, of course, that our moral judgments will then end up being justified. The epistemic standards epistemology meets might well not be met by moral theory. But there is good reason to think the kinds of consideration that are appropriate to judging epistemic principles will be appropriate too when it comes to judging other normative principles, including those that we might recognize as moral. This means that any quick dismissal of moral theory as obviously not the sort of thing that could really be justified are almost surely too quick.


What does he mean? Here's a quote from "Explanatory Impotence":

To take one (optimistic) example: Imagine that we justify believing in some property by apeal to its role in our best explanation of some observations, and we the njustify our belief that some explanation is the best available by appeal to our standards of explanatory quality, and finally, we justify these standards by appealing to their ultimate contribution to the maximization of expected utility. Imagine, also, tha thaving justified our standards of explanatory value, we turn to the justification for cultivating some moral property...we might justify these benefits by appeal to their maximizing expected utility.


The only way that I can make sense of this (given that his example is WILDLY IMPLAUSIBLE, as he himself acknowledges) is to be doing something like Enoch actually does. Enoch thinks that he's working in this spirit, I think, given what he says about S-M in his thesis. It's as good an explanation as any.

There's one argument in S-M that I want to dismiss. He writes "Once it has been granted that some explanations are better than others, many obstacles to a defense of moral values disappear. In fact, all general objections to the existence of value must be rejected as too strong."

Here's Field explaining why I don't like S-M's argument:

Justification is not an all or nothing affair. The belief in mathematical entities raises some problems which I and many others believe to be fairly serious. These puzzles provide reasons against the belief in mathematical entities, and to put it very crudely what we must do is weight the reasons for and the reasons against in deciding what to believe.


So we can have objections to the existence of epistemic values even if we decide, in the end, to embrace them in our ontology. And that means that those objections could still stand against moral values.

Other stuff

Explanation runs out well before justification does. There doesn't seem to be regress problems with explanation, because there are some statements that really really don't seem to need explanation. This is easier to argue for than the claim that there are statements that don't need justification. For example, does IBE need explanation? Is there anything mysterious about that? No, I don't think so. But it does need justification. This is a fairly obvious point, but one that I enjoyed making explicit. Also, note that being an explanation doesn't seem to have anything to do with justification. Only best explanations have anything to do with justification. I take this to be an indication that justification is a normative concept, but that has been argued for by others and needs more argument than I just gave.

An ontological argument for our best explanations being justified:
(1) One of our explanations is the best explanation.
(2) An explanation is worse if belief in it is unjustified.
(3) Belief in our best explanation is justified.

There's a bunch of flaws in here, but it's kinda cute. Wrong, but cute.

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