Constructivism, Intersubjectivity, Provability, and Triviality

ABSTRACT

Sharon Street defines her constructivism about practical reasons as the view that whether something is a reason to do a certain thing for a given agent depends on that agent’s normative point of view. However, Street has also maintained that there is a judgment about practical reasons which is true relative to every possible normative point of view, namely constructivism itself. I show that the latter thesis is inconsistent with Street’s own constructivism about epistemic reasons and discuss some consequences of this incompatibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Metaethics
• constructivism
• practical reasons
• moral relativism
• Darwinian Dilemma
• Sharon Street

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Shanna Slank, Elliott Sober, Rowland Stout, Sharon Street, and Mike Titelbaum for comments on previous versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See also the ‘brief evolutionary thought experiment’ of § 5. Note that this kind of view bears a strong analogy to Stanley’s (2005) interest-relative invariantism about knowledge in that it has that the relevant standpoint is the agent’s; Street argues for this in her (2008, 224) – on this issue see also Prinz (2007, §§ 5.1.2–5.1.3) and Schafer (2014).

2. For the attitude of valuing see Street (2012, § 2).

3. For another sense in which Street’s Humean constructivism is Kantian see her (2008, 244–245).

4. Note that Street (2009a, § 3) distinguishes, I think correctly, between the concept of an epistemic reason and that of a reason for belief. An epistemic reason is a reason to believe that p that tells in favor of the truth of p.

5. For the version focusing on natural realism see Street (2006, § 7), for that dealing with quasi-realism see Street (2011).

6. For a nice discussion of the point see Street (2006, § 4). For a defense of the use of genealogical considerations see Street (2015, §§ 1–2). For a useful taxonomy of the ways in which natural selection may have influenced our evaluative judgments see Joyce (2006, chapter 1), but keep in mind that such taxonomical issues are controversial – see, e.g. Sober and Wilson’s (1998, 79–86) discussion of the relation between group selection models (for which see, e.g. Sober and Wilson 1998, chapter 1) and evolutionary game theory models (for which see, e.g. Axelrod 1984, chapter 5). For the role of cultural evolution see Boyd and Richerson (2005, part 3). Finally, it is worth stressing that the empirical assumptions of Street’s argument are weaker than one might think (see Street 2006, 155): for one, the relevant traits do not have to be directly selected – for the distinction direct-indirect selection see Okasha (2006, 25) and Sober (2000, 83), which uses ‘selection for’ and ‘selection of’; for another, one can accept the notion that our normative judgments are the product of evolution without embracing the evolutionary psychology research program in the mainstream version popularized by Pinker (1997), which is controversial (see, e.g. Buller 2005).

7. Street says that it is ‘more likely than not’ that most of our evaluative judgments have nothing to do with the truth. I take the context to make clear that the intended claim is actually stronger: the probability in question is close to 1.

8. Slightly different readings of the passage are possible. All the available alternative readings, however, have Street making, at some point of her argument, a normative assumption ‒ which is all that matters for the purposes of this paper.

9. Note how different Shannon would be from Ben and the other characters described in Street (2009a, § 6).

10. Note that the conclusion of the previous paragraph is that there are possible normative points of view whose bearers do not have conclusive reasons to embrace constructivism. If, like Street, you take constructivism to be a judgment about practical reasons and, once again like Street, you are a constructivist about practical reasons, that conclusion entails that there are possible normative points of view relative to which constructivism is not true. However, if – say – you reject the notion that constructivism is a judgment about practical reasons, the corollary does not follow. And if you are a constructivist about practical reasons, you will conclude just that the bearers of the aforementioned possible normative points of view have no reason to believe a proposition which, as a matter of fact, is true – here it is worth keeping in mind that the possible realists in question have no reason to embrace constructivism precisely because in general their reasons depend on truth-related considerations less than ours do. And this looks like a hardly problematic conclusion.

11. When I discussed the problem with Street, this was the route she was inclined to go. A couple of promissory notes (notes 25 and 27) in the most recent version I have seen of forthcoming) suggest that she still feels that way.

12. Her terminology is different from mine: she says that the concept of a normative reason is neutral on the debate between realism and constructivism. I take this to be only a terminological difference.

13. Note that Street also agrees with a realist like Scanlon (see, e.g. 2014) that reasons are just facts: it was the fact that the chocolate cookies I ate this morning were delicious which was a reason for me to eat them all. The disagreement between constructivists and realists, therefore, is not one concerning what kind of things reasons are either, at least in Street’s view.

14. At one point, Street (forthcoming, 15) comes close to rejecting the premise in question: she says that the constructivist thesis does not, taken by itself, apply to itself. However, she then goes on to say that she regards the constructivist thesis as itself a substantive normative claim about what reasons there are and that this entails that constructivism is true only relative to a normative point of view. I am not sure this is a consistent position: if by ‘a substantive normative claim about what reasons there are’ Street means a judgment about what certain agents should do, then constructivism applies to itself; if not, I do not understand why constructivism should be thought to be true only relative to a normative point of view. That being said, it seems clear that Street does accept our argument’s second premise.

15. Note that the fact that our argument’s second premise is false gives us another route to the conclusion that the Kantian basis thesis is false: even if the Darwinian Dilemma were really sound relative to every possible normative point of view, the Kantian basis thesis would be false because constructivism is not a judgment about what people should do.