ABSTRACT
This paper addresses an important but relatively unexplored question about the relationship between conceptual ethics and other philosophical inquiry: how does the epistemology of conceptual ethics relate to the epistemology of other, more “traditional” forms of philosophical inquiry? This paper takes as its foil the optimistic thought that the epistemology of conceptual ethics will be easier and less mysterious than relevant “traditional” philosophical inquiry. We argue against this foil by focusing on the fact that that conceptual ethics is a form of normative inquiry. Because of the epistemic difficulties that face normative inquiry, we should not expect conceptual ethics to constitute an epistemic panacea. Instead, although the epistemological upshots can vary from case to case, there are systematic reasons why this shift may exacerbate, rather than mitigate, the epistemic difficulties we face in pursuing philosophical inquiry.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Alexis Burgess, Herman Cappelen, Ian Cruise, Terence Cuneo, Raff Donelson, Tyler Doggett, Andy Egan, Jesse Ferraioli, Natalie Dokken, Céline Henn, Yvonne Hütter-Almerigi, Zöe Johnson King, Zachary Lang, Amanda Li, Jake McNulty, Kate Nolfi, Jonathan Phillips, Björn Ramberg, Timothy Rosenkoetter, Jada Twedt Strabbing, Tim Sundell, and Amie Thomasson for helpful discussion and feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See, for example, the papers collected in (Burgess, Cappelen, and Plunkett Citation2020).
3 We make this assumption solely for the purposes of expository simplicity. In fact, we are sympathetic to the idea that much philosophical inquiry involves work in conceptual ethics, either explicitly or implicitly. For an overview of some of the many places it shows up explicitly, see (Burgess and Plunkett Citation2013a), (Cappelen and Plunkett Citation2020), and (Cappelen Citation2018). For discussion of the idea that significant parts of philosophy might well involve implicit arguments in conceptual ethics, see (Plunkett Citation2015) and (Thomasson Citation2016). Once we relax the assumption that “traditional” philosophy inquiry doesn’t centrally involve work in conceptual ethics, we can better formulate our central question in terms of the epistemological relationship between the conceptual ethics and non-conceptual ethics elements of philosophical inquiries. We will return to this issue in the conclusion of the paper.
4 In this paper, we use single quotation marks (e.g. ‘bicycle’) to mention linguistic items. We use double quotation marks (e.g. “bicycle”) for a variety of tasks including quoting others’ words, scare quotes, and mixes of use and mention. We use small caps (e.g. bicycle) to pick out concepts.
6 For a range of different approaches, see the essays collected in (Burgess, Cappelen, and Plunkett Citation2020).
7 Our gloss on conceptual ethics below draws mostly from (Burgess and Plunkett Citation2013a) and (Burgess and Plunkett Citation2013b).
8 For example, Herman Cappelen focuses solely on the meanings of lexical items in his discussion of “conceptual engineering” (which we take to involve “conceptual ethics”). See (Cappelen Citation2018).
9 For an example of work in (what we take to be) “conceptual ethics” that gives a central role to broadly “moral” and “political” considerations, see (Haslanger Citation2000). For work that gives a central role to broadly “epistemological” ones, see (Pérez Carballo Citation2020). And for work that gives a central role to broadly “metaphysical” ones, see (Sider Citation2011).
10 Our gloss on “conceptual engineering” draws from (Burgess and Plunkett Citation2020) and (Cappelen and Plunkett Citation2020). We are skating over some of the relatively subtle differences between those two accounts, which don’t matter to our discussion here.
11 The question of what distinguishes “reforming” from “replacing” a concept (or a word, etc.) is an interesting one for work in conceptual ethics and conceptual engineering. But it is not one that matters for our core line of argument in what follows. So we leave it to the side in our discussion here.
17 For example, this would be true if local skepticism is true about the relevant area of philosophy. Some pragmatists also seem to think that “traditional” philosophical inquiry is impossible, as (e.g.) Rorty suggests about the alleged effort to “step outside of our own skin” (Rorty Citation1982, xix). Many philosophical projects might also be “impossible” (in a relevant sense) if, as (Scharp Citation2020) suggests, they are shot through with deeply defective concepts.
18 For an example of an extended “conceptual engineering” approach to free will, which also includes significant amounts of methodological reflection on those projects that we are here calling “conceptual ethics” and “conceptual engineering”, see (Vargas Citation2013).
19 For a critical discussion of this track record, see (Williamson Citation2007). For a more optimistic take on the prospects of conceptual analysis given this track record, see (Jackson Citation1998).
20 Quine writes: “Here [in the case of stipulation] we have a really transparent case of synonymy created by definition; would that all species of synonymy were as intelligible” (Quine Citation1951, 26).
27 See (Rorty Citation1980). Note that we say “arguably” here with a nod to the kind of possibility that we discuss later in this paper: namely, that certain anti-realist views don’t actually sidestep many of the relevant epistemological difficulties in the areas they are adopted in (e.g. metaethics).
32 For further discussion of this idea, see (McPherson and Plunkett Citation2020).
33 The following discussion briefly introduces issues explored in more depth in (McPherson and Plunkett Citation2021b).
34 For further discussion, see (McPherson and Plunkett Citation2021b).
41 Note that different metanormative theories have different implications for the epistemology of the normative, including ones that matter for how difficult it is and what problems it faces. For discussion of different dimensions of these implications, see (McPherson Citation2012), (Darwall Citation1998), and (Street Citation2006).
45 For a more careful discussion of how to understand the non-naturalist’s distinctive metaphysical commitments, see (McPherson and Plunkett CitationForthcoming), drawing on (McPherson Citation2015b).
46 See (Burgess and Plunkett Citation2013a) and (Burgess and Plunkett Citation2013b) for discussion. For some examples of philosophers who appeal centrally to goals in doing (at least some key parts) of conceptual ethics, see (Haslanger Citation2000) and (Thomasson Citation2020).
47 We here echo our discussion in (McPherson and Plunkett Citation2020, 295), drawing on discussion in (Burgess and Plunkett Citation2013b, 1105). Note that, in saying it should be controversial, we aren’t here committed to denying that instrumentalism is correct. For arguments on its behalf, see (Schroeder Citation2007) and (Street Citation2006).
48 Although see (Lenman Citation2000) for reasons to be skeptical about how epistemically tractable this kind of investigation really is.
49 Note that this is true even on most contemporary metaethical theories that give pride of place to our contingent attitudes (such as, for example, (Lewis Citation1989), (Railton Citation1986), (Schroeder Citation2007), and (Street Citation2006)), insofar as those relevant attitudes aren’t directly chosen by us. The same point applies to most contemporary “quietist” metaethical views (such as (Dworkin Citation1996) and (Scanlon Citation2014)), which, put roughly, claim that most apparently metaethical claims can only be understood as further internal normative claims.
51 In the case of the simplest form of anti-realist expressivism (such as (Ayer Citation1952 [Citation1936])), it is not even clear that epistemological questions arise.
52 For a discussion of the epistemology of one sophisticated version of naturalistic realism, see (McPherson Citation2018b).
55 In (Smith Citation1994), Smith argues that we can simply use the “method of reflective equilibrium” here. But it is not at all clear why, on Smith’s metaethical account, someone should start her normative inquiry with her contingent and potentially idiosyncratic normative opinions, as his gloss on that method suggests. In later work (such as (Smith Citation2012) and (Smith Citation2013)) Smith has begun to develop important constitutivist forms of argument that seem a better match for the background metaethics. For general critical discussion about how much guidance we can get from the “method of reflective equilibrium” for the epistemology of the normative, see (McPherson Citation2015a).
56 See (Schroeder Citation2007). For discussion of a relevant foil of a kind of “simple subjectivism”, see (McPherson and Plunkett Citation2017).
58 For example, see (Blackburn Citation1993) and (Gibbard Citation2003). For critical discussion, see (McPherson Citation2022). Note that the relevant part of the “quasi-realist” program we are talking about here is the part that Sebastian Köhler discusses as “accommodationist” expressivism in (Köhler Citation2021).
62 This might be true, for example, given the commitments argued for in (Jackson Citation1998) and (Thomasson Citation2015).
63 For example, such as the view argued for in (Thomasson Citation2020).
64 For example, such as the view argued for in (Thomasson Citation2015).
65 For further sympathetic discussion of this idea, see (McPherson and Plunkett Citation2020) and (McPherson and Plunkett Citation2021b).
66 It also might not, if our ability to understand our own normative or evaluative commitments is limited. Such limits might be suggested by the wide variety of different systematic views on offer in the contemporary metanormative literature, and the large amounts of disagreement in this area.
67 This is a point emphasized in more detail in (McPherson Citation2018b).
71 In other work, we argue that in the foundations of ethics and epistemology, (i) it is comparatively rare for practitioners to carefully distinguish conceptual ethics projects from what we call “metanormative” projects, and (ii) it is nonetheless very useful to distinguish these sorts of projects from each other, because while each such project can be powerfully motivated, their constitutive success conditions are quite different. See (McPherson and Plunkett Citation2021a) and (McPherson and Plunkett Citation2021c).
74 For discussion of how we think about “topics” in relation to issues about concepts, see (McPherson and Plunkett Citation2021d).
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