Chapter Two...

...is almost done. Here's the introduction:

In the previous chapter I argued that belief in epistemic realism is epistemically optional. From this point on, I will assume that there are objective facts corresponding to what epistemic reasons we have. In this chapter I will discuss the search for these facts. My focus will be on the question, how do we know which epistemic facts to accept? How do we know that Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) is a good principle of belief-formation, and that Inference to the Worst Explanation (IWE) is not? Presumably, we need some further epistemic principle to guide us. What, then, guides us towards that further principle?

I will argue that there is an ineliminable arbitrariness in our epistemic theories. The point can be put in the following way: it might be that—given a fixed set of epistemic principles and norms—all of one’s beliefs will turn out to be justified. Nevertheless, there is no way to provide a reason to accept any particular one of these fixed sets of principles and norms. There are always some elements of a theory that are the result of arbitrary choice, and I will call these aspects the “elemental aspects” of an epistemic theory. I call them “elemental” because commitment to them determines the composition of one’s epistemic theory by way of eliminating degrees of freedom. Choice of elemental aspects of one’s epistemology, however, is ungoverned by epistemology.

If epistemology is somewhat arbitrary, what constraints are there on any given set of principles? Is there nothing wrong with believing IWE? The answer is that there is something wrong with believing IWE, but only within some fixed epistemology. Given a certain epistemology, one’s epistemic principles need to obey one’s own internal standards and norms. What explains what is problematic about IWE is that it conflicts with the internal standards that most of us share.

The upshot of this discussion for moral realism is that since there is a degree of arbitrariness in choice of epistemology, there is nothing objectionable with taking on an epistemology that is sympathetic to moral beliefs, as long as it does not conflict with the rest of one’s epistemic principles and beliefs. Of course, this doesn’t remove the responsibility from the moral realist of disarming the anti-realist objections to his view. But the moral realist needs to do that anyway. Once one looks at things in this way, one recognizes that this is all that the moral realist needs to do. The burden of proof, I will argue, is decisively shifted away from the realist.