Cuneo's 6 Arguments against realism: II

Now, onto the argument from queerness.

From Prof. Selim Berker's lecture notes on metaethics, I know that there are multiple versions of this argument. Following Prof Berker, here are two different ways to make the argument:

THE MOTIVATIONAL INTERPRETATION

1) If there are objective moral facts, then they are facts that motivate(/have to-be-done-ness built into them/reasons internalism is true)
2) No facts are motivating (Humean picture of motivation)
3) So there are no objective moral facts

THE DUTY INTERPRETATION

1) If there are objective moral facts, then they are facts that place upon us an obligation/restriction/duty/give us a reason to X
2) No facts are such
3) No objective moral facts

OK, OK, my premises 1) weren't really precise because I wasn't careful about what sort of thing brings upon the obligation. Is it knowledge of the fact? Something vaguer, like recognition? Mere belief (which is implausible in the reasons case but better in the motivational case)? I'm leaving that part out. Moving on,

So, Prof Berker, in his lecture, notes, makes a companion in guilt argument for both of these interpretations. For the first, he suggests that regular practical reasoning would be just as queer for the motivational interpretation. After all, we believe that there is a fact of the matter about what's in my best interest, and wouldn't that be just as queer? There's room to push back on Prof Berker. If one's unwilling to accept moral realism that makes best-interest realism unapealing. Say we were moral nihlists. When we consider what's in our best interest we usually discount options like "kill this guy and take his wallet" because doing so would be horribly wrong. Maybe morality is implicitly part of our consideration of what's in our best interests.

In any event, Prof Berker suggests that in the reasons interpretation of the argument epistemology will be a companion in guilt. Because, say what you will about epistemology, if you think it's a normative domain then it gives you reasons to believe (at the very least), and if it's queer that there are facts that give you reasons to act (at the very least) then how is that any less queer than a reason to believe? A reason's the weird thing, no?

Cuneo presents a motivational interpretation of the argument from queerness, but then suggests that epistemology is a proper companion in guilt to ethics. But since he's doing the motivational interpretation of the argument he can't simply appeal to the fact that epistemology gives one a reason to believe something. Motivation is motivation to act, and so he has to show that epistemology gives one a reason to act. He convinced me that earlier that virtue epistemology is right, that we evaluate actions epistemologically as well. Following that, he says "Consider the fact that Sam's maintaining a high level of confidence in a proposition is unwarranted because his doing so is intellectually foolish. If facts such as these were to exist, then they would seem to have a motivational magnetism simliar to that of moral facts."

What's wrong with this? Well, if we're simply talking about motivations (and not reasons) it seems that ethics has a much different claim on motivation than epistemology does. In Cuneo's terminology (which he has plenty of!) this is summed up by saying that morality has normative force, while epistemology doesn't. That is, "We do not typically claim that epistemic obligations are overriding, for example. Nor do we claim that failing to conform to them warrants guilt." Why is this a concern? Cuneo is attempting to say that the weirdness of ethics is shared by epistemology. But it seems that epistemology doesn't motivate quite in the way that ethics does. Perhaps we should say that epistemology isn't motivating, that the queerness belongs only to ethics. But I wonder if Cuneo isn't on better ground then this. Isn't epistemology motivating, even if it's not an overriding consideration, as it is with ethics? The objection only seems to stick if we think that epistemology doesn't motivate at all. Essentially, Cuneo's responses are ways of saying that ethics might be a stronger or different kind of motivation, but that doesn't mean that epistemology isn't motivating. But it is worth taking stock of an important difference between ethics and epistemology--the normative force of ethics is lacking in epistemology. Whether this pulls the two apart in any significant way is to be seen.

Personally, I'm feeling sympathetic to Brink's arguments that motivation internalism is right, in which case the better argument is the one presented by Garner, the reasons interpretation of the queerness argument. If that's the case though, as Prof Berker pointed out, epistemology seems like an even better companion in guilt since there are epistemic reasons as well.

In short: I'm sympathetic to Cuneo's first two arguments. The normative nature of ethics seems to be behind the supervenience objection, as well as the argument from queerness. Epistemology is also a normative domain, so I don't have any objections to Cuneo's claim of having found a companion in guilt.